End Game trailer

Chess GM turns detective , superb new television series


Arkady Balagan, played by Shawn Doyle, finds himself confined to a hotel due to a debilitating case of agoraphobia. Unable to leave his hotel and running out of money, the arrogant and charismatic Russian inadvertently becomes a detective - using his fierce analytical skills to solve crimes - and relies on friends and hotel employees to do his legwork; from conducting interviews and trailing suspects to bringing back clues. Balagan then uses his strategic thinking to stage imaginative reenactments in his own mind until he finds the solution.

So far three episodes have been shown, and while some themes are still being toyed around with such as the mental projections, which he sometimes looks at and sometimes actively participates in, while details of the stories are unraveled. In terms of chess, each episode so far has highlighted his actual chess skills, albeit in unorthodox ways, such as the timeless simul, to online gambling (in chess), to clock blitz simuls for wads of bills, though inevitably, it comes down to how these skills translate into helping him solve crimes. The issue of agoraphobia is used as a bit of a gimmick to force Arkady to use the full extent of his visualization skills, since his mental block prevents him from leaving the luxury hotel where he stays and thus more direct participation.

As a character, he doesn't suffer from many of the mental foibles that have often been labeled to players (such as Fischer), and apart from some blatant arrogance, and the need to walk around everywhere barefoot, even when in a suede suit, he is quite balanced. He is aided by several others such as Sam Besht, a graduate student sporting a 2200 FIDE rating with an understandable admiration of the champion, Pippa Venturi, the sister of his recently murdered wife, to the hotel detective with whom he often finds himself at ends with, and a couple of others.

The filming and the reenactments are often the highlight of the storytelling, allowing creative scenes where he slowly tries each possibility and eliminates them, much as refuted moves in a variation, and others where he constructs elaborate scenes and actively interacts with his imaginings while he tries to figure things out.

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