The reason is that after 22.Ne6, the refutation of the Kronsteen combination, White can play 23.Ng6 (or 23.Qe4 and then Ng6) and win the black Ne6, e.g. But unlike McAdams Bronstein did not blunder with 22.Kh7. Spassky, like Kronsteen, did indeed play 22.Nxe5+, and Bronstein did reply 22.Kh7, only to resign after 23.Qe4+, for the same reasons given above. This position is identical to the one in the Bond movie, except that White has two pawns in the center. There is however a slight difference to the Bond game. It is the famous King's Gambit brilliancy. Nigel is right, it was from a game Boris Spassky had played three years earlier, against David Bronstein in Leningrad ('Bronstein', 'Kronsteen' – get it?). The position used in From Russia with Love is very realistic, the combination quite beautiful, except for the fact that McAdams could have probably drawn with 1.Ne6 (instead of 1.Kh7?). 2.g6 is not much better, since 3.Rf7+ wins the queen. The reason McAdams resigned is clear: after 2.Kh8 3.Rxf8+ Qxf8 (or 3.Rxf8) White wins prettily with 4.Ng6+ Kh7 5.Nxf8+ Kh8 6.Qh7 mate. McAdams is horrified and knocks over his king as a sign of resignation, muttering 'Congratulations sir, that was a brilliant coup.' The audience bursts into applause as Kronsteen leaves the room to get on with his evil plottings. McAdams nervously plays 1.Kh7, after which Kronsteen smiles and plays 2.Qe4+. He ominously says 'check' while the move is displayed for the audience on a large demonstration board. Here Kronsteen gives his opponent a long glare and then plays 1.Nxe5+ (as you can see in the picture above). Kronsteen – McAdams, From Russia with Love, 1963

The position on the board is the following: In the famous chess scene at the beginning of the movie we see Kronsteen playing the Canadian McAdams in an 'International Grandmaster Championship'. The game is planned minutely, the gambits of the enemy are provided for.' When they wish to execute a plot, they execute it brilliantly. I've anticipated every possible variation of countermove.' And Bond's colleague, the Turkish operative Kerim Bey, says of him: 'These Russians are great chess players. Kronsteen is also a world-class chess player who, when asked if his plan would be successful, replies: 'It will be. One of the villains is Kronsteen, played by Vladek Sheybal, master plotter for the terror organisation SPECTRE. The movie Nigel mentions, From Russia with Love, was produced in 1963. Here is all the information about the chess scene in 'From Russia with love' and the famous game that they use in the movie. He added that he played chess almost daily, especially between film shootings. In June 1945, in an interview in the magazine Silver Screen, when asked what things in life mattered most to him, he replied that chess was one of his main interests. In 1945, the cover of the June-July issue of Chess Review showed Bogart playing with Charles Boyer, as Lauren Bacall (who also played) looks on.

īogart was a USCF tournament director and active in the California State Chess Association, and a frequent visitor to the Hollywood chess club. He achieved a draw in a simultaneous exhibition given in 1955 at Beverly Hills by the famous chess Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky and also played against George Koltanowski in San Francisco in 1952 (Koltanowski played blindfolded but still won in 41 moves). A chess position from one of his correspondence games appears in the movie, although the image is a little blurred. The chess scenes in Casablanca had not been in the original script, but were put in at his insistence.

Before he made any money from acting, he would hustle players for dimes and quarters, playing in New York parks and at Coney Island. It is a little known fact that Bogart was an excellent chess player, almost of master strength. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about him.

Whenever I think of chess in movies I think of Bogie in 'Casablanca'.

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