Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Depending on who you are, there are 1 to 3 reasons to watch this movie:

1. I like the Sherlock Holmes portrayal, over the TV series with Benedict.
2. It's fun, well made, and entertaining.
3. It has a nice cast - Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and the villain all acted well.
4. It's by the same guy who directed King Arthur: Legend of the sword.
5. It's a sequel to another great movie.

That being said, major spoilers ahead.

Still here?

OK.

I was rewatching the final scene in this movie, when Sherlock and Moriarty meet face to face.

Watson is trying to avert WW III by identifying and preventing an assassination.

Sherlock's goal is to kill Moriarty, and is looking for an opening. Puns, hehe - the scene in question starts when they play chess, and Moriarty begins to leave.

Sherlock entices Moriarty with 2 leads - one, with a nice move on the board, and two, with a nice move off the board.

This YouTube video has that scene, with the chess board visualized, over the footage.

Moriarty is black. Sherlock is white - there's some lag between the moves, and the visual representation.

Here is 1 screenshot of a particular board state:

White, Sherlock, to move

What will you do?

Mine, and Sherlock's moves, way below, to prevent spoiler.

Mine was wrong.

I would have picked the bishop on black squares, to f8, for a checkmate. Sherlock takes longer, so I decided to write a post about it.

My rook is untouchable, and both white bishops cover a lot.

Then I realized, Moriarty's black king can move diagonally to g6, so it's not a checkmate.

Not even close.

In fact, it's a blunder - I just lost a winning position.

Keep in mind Sherlock has to avoid checkmate, while checkmating, so tempo is key.

Chess Tip: Any move you make, opens you to your opponents move, unless you win instantly.

Moving a piece to take advantage of your opponent's weakness, leaves an open space behind, for your opponent to take advantage of, until someone wins.

It's a 2 player dance, not a 1-sided assault.

I am pretty sure that's why in the west, culturally, abstract thinking is associated with women's intuition - men are typically associated with brute force assaults.

For example, think of any scene in an older Hollywood movie, where the pretty secretary just "knows" the boss is in a bad mood, but the male boss himself is clueless.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Ada was the first programmer, Sherlock is often shown with a feminine touch, Beckham is much smaller in frame with great technical skill, and in Red Cliff, the generals with lesser ego do better tactical maneuvers.

But I realized that it was a blunder in the middle of writing this post, so I learned why Sherlock's move was brilliant.

He moves his white-squared bishop first, to prevent the black king escaping later.

Then, he does what I wanted to do, and checkmates.