Columbo: The Most Dangerous Match

Was it more than 30 years ago that I became irresistibly drawn to the adventures of TV cop Lt Frank Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department? The fictional, slow-witted detective who lived in his crumpled raincoat and drove a battered Peugeot convertible but who always solved his cases through a constant and dogged pestering of the suspects?

Yes, that's him, alright. Columbo as portraited by Peter Falk in his most famous role. The show was screened on Monday nights here in Malaysia, alternating with McMillan and Wife (starring Rock Hudson and Susan St James) and McCloud (with Dennis Weaver in the role) from the NBC Mystery Movie series.

The episode that had always stayed fresh in my mind despite all these years was from Season Two of the show. Called The Most Dangerous Match, it capitalised on chess at the height of its popularity in the United States after Bobby Fischer had snatched the world chess crown from Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

The premise of the show was very simple. The world chess champion was American Emmett Clayton, played by Laurence Harvey who died young from stomach cancer a year after this show was taped. His challenger was Soviet Tomlin Dudek, played by Jack Kruschen. Clayton knew he could not beat Dudek in a match so he contrived an elaborate plan to get rid of him. After that, the show centred on Columbo pinning Clayton as the prime suspect and hounding him to confess to the crime.

To me, the most interesting part of the show was its first half hour. The two chess protagonists happened to meet in a restaurant on the eve of the match. What a coincidence that the table cloth was of chequered red and white squares. It was the perfect setting for an impromptu game with pepper shakers and salt containers standing in for the kings and queens, foodstuff and what not as the other pieces, and the knives and forks to delineate the boundary of the chessboard.

To the untrained eye, it may seem wondrous that chess players would be able to distinguish one piece of olive or cheese from another on this makeshift chessboard but I assure you, it's nothing at all to chess players. The pieces are only visual representations to help the mind as it calculates, evaluates, discards, accepts, recalculates each new plan or strategy.

Cue to another scene in the show where now, the two players were involved in another private game but with real chess pieces on a real chessboard. Dudek demonstrated how, with a sacrifice of his queen, he could force a series of moves that would checkmate Clayton's king. Clayton was visibly pained and agitated. All his efforts to keep the game on an even keel was in vain. But Dudek tried to reassure Clayton, never mind, it's only a game.

Yes, it was only a game but it was from a real game, played in a Maastricht tournament way back in 1946. Movie trivia only mentioned this game as played between Wolthuis and Alexander, and there is no other information. So I guess it's up to chess players like me to try and ferret out more information.

Wim (Willem) Wolthuis was Dutch. He wasn't a particularly strong player but he was possibly good enough for the organisers to include him in the 10-man, round-robin Maastricht tournament which was won by the former world champion, Dr Max Euwe. Despite finishing in last place, Wolthuis' claim to fame was his single win against Alexander, a very common and non-descript name to non-chess players. However, chess players would know him as the strong British player, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander. That's a mouthful of a name. In books and magazines (there's even a book written about his best games of chess), he was known as C.H.O'D. Alexander. His friends knew better than to call him See Aitch Oh Dee or even Chod, while he answered simply to the name of Hugh.

And the game in question? Here it is, in Portable Game Notation (PGN) format:

[Event "Maastricht"]
[Site "Maastricht"]
[Date "1946.??.??"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Wolthuis, Wim"]
[Black "Alexander, Conel Hugh O'Donel"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E33"]
[PlyCount "49"]
[EventDate "1946.??.??"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "NED"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "1999.07.01"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Qxc3 O-O 8. g3 Ne4 9. Qc2 f5 10. Bg2 Qf6 11. e3 Bd7 12. b4 a5 13. b5 Ne7 14. Bb2 c6 15. a4 Rfc8 16. bxc6 Nxc6 17. O-O Nb4 18. Qb3 d5 19. cxd5 exd5 20. Rfc1 Rxc1+ 21. Rxc1 b5 22. axb5 Bxb5 23. Ne5 Qe6 24. Ra1 Nd2 25. Qxb4 1-0

Poor Clayton. In the Columbo show, he never stood a chance after 25 Qxb4 as Dudek patiently explained what would happen after 25...axb4 26 Rxa8+ Be8 27 Bxd5 Qxd5 28 Rxe8+ with mate. Of course, this never happened in the actual game because "Chod" saw it all coming and resigned the game after his opponent had played 25 Qxb4.