It’s been three years since I last mentioned this ethics pet peeve. I was triggered just yesterday by the commercial above, which I was inclined to favor because it includes my late father’s favorite dog breed (also one of mine), the majestic Irish Wolfhound. I have nothing new to say about the issue, but as I wrote in 2022, “If this post stops just one human being from making that stupid mistake, my life will not have been in vain after all.”
In the ad above, we twice catch glimpses of a garden chessboard, like those royalty once would use with human beings as the chess pieces. (Mel Brooks spoofs this recreation in his “History of the World, Part 1.”). I saw the ad several times before I realized the board was set up wrong. I would never buy a Range Rover Sport anyway, but if I were in the market for one, that inexcusable gaffe would ensure that I bought something else. Or took the bus.
The board, which we are briefly shown from the side, has black squares in the right-hand corners from both players’ perspective. For the first time you learn how to play chess, one hopes as a child (every kid should learn chess), the little rhyme “White on the right” is drilled into your skull. (It’s the opposite of checkers, in which the black squares are on the players’ right.) If the board is set up wrong and has a black square on the players’ right, the game is invalid. Nobody who knows how to play chess would make such a tyro’s error, and yet I see it all the time in big budget movies, on prestige TV shows, and, as above, in commercials.
It tells me that the people responsible for any of these are careless and untrustworthy. The gaffe symbolizes all the laziness, ignorance, carelessness and lack of integrity in the world. It should never happen, ever; if it does, it means that nobody involved in the project cared enough to make sure the project was done right.
In the Ben Affleck action movie “Paycheck,” a man who has had his memory wiped clean is being set up for assassination by a woman pretending to be the love of his life whom he forgot along with everything else. Trying to determine if she is really his lost soul mate, Ben asks her, “What’s my favorite baseball team?” Her answer (“What difference does it make?”) reveals that she is a fake: anyone who had been in a romantic relationship with him (or the real Ben, for that matter…or me) would have known that the answer was “The Boston Red Sox.”
Similarly, when my wife and I were invited to a dinner decades ago by a lobbyist who hoped we would strike up a social relationship with her and her political operative husband, I saw prominently displayed in the couple’s living room an ostentatious chess board with glass pieces. It was set up incorrectly. That was signature significance: the couple didn’t play chess, they just wanted people to think they did. I knew immediately that this nascent relationship with the Marshalls was doomed. Sure enough, the husband proved to be an insecure, posturing jerk, desperate to impress without the goods to do so legitimately.
That was one of several episodes involving incorrectly set up chess boards where I was tipped off to character flaws that would have caused me problems if I had not been forewarned.
This is one bias I’m grateful for. I hope I have passed it on to you.
Ethics Alarms 
While placing the board incorrectly bothers me, it can be mitigated as long as the queens are placed properly. But since more people learn, “Queen goes on her own color,” than “white on right”, the rotated board tends to end up with the Kings on the fourth file and the queens on the fifth.
But what really blows my mind is watching chess games on TV where it is mid-game, obviously no pieces have been promoted, and a player has two bishops on the same color. That one infuriates me.
As a note, by “mitigated”, I just mean in a friendly setting, you can play the game normally as long as all the pieces are oriented correctly relative to each other, even if the board is turned 90 degrees. If you place black in the right corner, and then place queens on their own color, it inverts the pieces, so white plays like black and black like white, except white goes first. The depth of this issue is usually lost on 7-year-olds who are just learning how to play.
As a gratuitous add, my wife and I bought “Story Time Chess”, a chess setup with characters and stories to help little kids learn all the rules. Our daughters loved it.
Alright. This is making me crazy.* I watched the ad a few times. I thought the issue would be the Black Queen on a white square but I chalked that up to the pieces moving on the board.
From my perspective watching the ad on my computer, there is a white square in the upper left hand corner, which means that the lower right hand corner should be white as well, ¿no? If white sits at what would be the bottom of my screen, wouldn’t that mean that white is on my right? What am I missing?
jvb
*Ed. Note: Erm . . . crazier than usual. Why? Don’t ask. Well, I am going to tell you anyway. Hold on your to the seats of your pants.
See, I represent a party that purchased a house a foreclosure sale and we initiated eviction proceedings to remove someone from the property who doesn’t belong there. She says she bought but refuses to show us anything showing she has an interest in the house. I said to our client, “It’s her job to prove she has an interest, not ours. Let’s move forward.” We did. She filed bankruptcy and the court stayed the case, placing it on the bankruptcy stay docket. As luck would have it, her case got thrown out of court yesterday so I moved to reopen the eviction case, something I have done a million times.
The court coordinator called me this morning and advised that the motion to reinstate is not correct, that I have to file a notice of removal from the bankruptcy stay docket. I have no idea what that is. She said, rather pointedly, that the case is not closed but remains open, only stayed (agreed) but it is on the bankruptcy stay docket. My notice of removal will take it off the bankruptcy stay docket and place the case back on the trial docket. Oh. But, in my own way, I informed her that there is a “notice of removal” prompt on the efiling system, which normally means that a case has been removed to federal court and if I use that prompt, it will tell the clerk’s office that abate pending resolution of matters in federal court. She said, “oh, t will be fine.” Famous last words.
So, in my infinite wisdom, I filed a “request to removal case from bankruptcy stay docket to trial docket” and I am awaiting head explosions from the firm and the clerk’s office.
Ugh.
Near as I can tell, that’s the White Queen, and the king is the Black King. But there’s no White King, so the game is invalid anyway. I’m not sure if the view of the board from the balcony is suppose to be downfield or across. If were setting it up so I could watch a giant game in progress from the balcony, I would want to have a side view. On the other hand, if I were playing from the balcony, I would want to be behind my pieces…
I’m not sure I’m following the entire foreclosure case details, but it sounds like there’s some red tape involved you’re not accustomed to encountering, there’s no clear solution, and the one that seems to be providing is going to cause a trainwreck?
Ah. I think I see the point you are making.
As for the court, it just seemed to be a matter of form over substance considering that I had already filed a motion to remove the abatement and set the case for trial. I saw the case manager this afternoon. She chuckled when she saw me, knowing that she was impairing my tenuous grasp on reality.
jvb
I saw that as well, but if you look at the knight on the board, it is facing right to left. So I think that would imply that the player’s edge of the board would run down the right hand side. Which in turn means that the lower right hand square, from the player’s perspective, is indeed black and thus invalid.
To be honest, it has been so many decades since I last played chess that I’d forgotten how to set up a board. I’m sure I knew all these rules back when I was a teenager…
I once was awarded a match in a chess tournament because the board had been set up wrong in a game I was losing, and it had to be restarted. Them my opponent’s clock ran out. Boy, was he steamed….
Interesting. I would think that if you started playing the game, you would waive the improper board set up.
jvb
That was my opponent’s position. But the tournament referee said that the game was invalid from the outset, and thus couldn’t count. Five years later, in another tournament, I beat him with another technicality. He hates me. Can’t say I blame him…
I never knew there was a void ad initio rule in chess. Interesting.
jvb
That went way too fast for me to see the problem. And, like some have said, the orientation of the Board may depend on where you are playing from.
At any rate, I have a neighbor who puts himself out as a competent student of the game (a very good player who knows quite a bit about what he doesn’t know). I have no reason to doubt him, but my comment requires context.
I spoke to him about Jack’s pet peeve the last time he brought this up. He says he has a keen eye for this mistake, as well, and he notices when the error is made. (Me? When I watch TV, I try to discern if I recognize any books that happen to be on bookshelves as decorations.)
For him, it is annoying, but not to the degree that it annoys Jack. But, he also does not tend to his lawn very diligently, either, if that tells you anything.
-Jut
I am also going to say that I caught the tail end of that commercial any number of times — I don’t remember exactly when, probably during some sort of sporting tournament.
I never could figure it out, what she was referring to ‘You found it”. Now I see the entire commercial for the first time, and I am still confused. I had thought she was referring to the car, which seemed weird (but then it is a commercial, after all). Now it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps she is referring to the ball. Still pretty silly, but it might make a small modicum of sense.
This was the first time I’d even seen the chessboard, or the telescope. Some commercials are odd like that, they only graze at the background of your consciousness and you never really pick up on what’s going on.
Yeah, it’s a dumb commercial. I suspect the pooch couldn’t care less about the red ball. I hear tell that dogs are color blind.
jvb