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01:15:34 PM Apr 13th 2013
Pulled this from the main page. It's a mess of natter and Conversation on the Main Page. Not sure what to do with it, so I brought it here.

Checkmate, troper. You've read through the article just as I planned. You lose.
04:02:30 PM Nov 3rd 2011
What exactly is the difference between a Batman Gambit and the Chessmaster? Is the Chessmaster a series of interwoven Batman Gambits?
01:17:03 PM Apr 13th 2013
Batman-Gambit is one gambit, characterized by carefully predicting what each player will do. The Chessmaster is a character trope, about the guy who has a whole bunch of plots and plans (usually at least mostly successful).
06:18:50 PM Jul 11th 2011
Not to be rude but, WTF happened to the image. The previous image was fine the way it is (a picture of a smug guy with a chessboard in front of him), but this new image is just A Face And A Caption. Could we please bring the old image back?
11:39:31 AM Jul 22nd 2011
Well, the old pic seems to be back again. Still, I must say that there are two things with that picture that are just plain wrong.

1. A chess board is 8x8 squares, NOT 13x6. 2. You cannot win if you have only the king left. If both sides have only one king left, it's a draw, no matter how "brilliant" mr. Little Finger is.

The current image should be removed.
11:10:55 AM Jan 21st 2011
Is it possible for The Chessmaster to be Chaotic Evil even if they're commanding a group of minions?

I ask this because I'm making an action film idea and I want the antagonsit to be the cunning leader of a Islamic terrorist group (Western Terrorists are so cliched), but I want it implied that he is actually a Bomb Throwing Anarchist deep down who just wants to cause chaos and destruction, but is only going along with the whole Islamic fundamentalist thing because it is the most popular and well-funded type of terrorism. Based on how I described him, does he sound like a Chaotic Evil?
08:42:48 AM Jul 13th 2010
The article mentions that Chess is a game of perfect information and therefore an inappropriate metaphor.

Yet it has been clearly shown that the ability to plan for future moves is a crucial aspect of playing chess. In fact, computer chess programs rely on "tree look-ahead" for their operation.

In other words, deception is a matter of concealing intent, not current board status.
09:59:38 AM Jul 13th 2010
Seems to me that the reason this trope is called that is because a "chessmaster" guides events so that people do what he wants: they're like the pieces on the board but unaware that they're being moved around.
03:00:59 PM Jun 9th 2010
Is the picture used really up to the standard of the majority of pages on here? Purely personal opinion, which I realise is frowned upon at best, but there are some very good sketches of actual examples on the page. Sketches of Vetinari from deviantART spring to mind which would be alot better than the shoddy piece of work currently being used as the trope image, even a photo of kasparov would be better.
08:33:47 AM Jun 2nd 2011
The current page picture has nothing to do with a chessmaster. It's just meaningless. He has only his king left, and you can't win with only your king left, no matter how good you are. There must be better pictures out there.
04:48:27 PM Nov 12th 2011
I know this is long dead, but just pointing out—although that picture made no sense as a trope image, it did make sense in context. The character's actual goal seems to be to eliminate all the other players and pieces until he's the only one left.
05:02:54 PM Mar 27th 2010
"The Prophet of Truth from Halo. In Halo 2 he is the epitome of the Chessmaster, going as far as to eliminate the Sangheili without them even knowing it, kills off his two co-leaders with no mercy or regret (hahaha...), and having the Arbiter run a wild goose chase, culminating in the latter's "demise" at the hands of Tartarus."

This example is under the "Actually Using Chess Metaphors" section, but I don't recall any being made. Is my memory failing me again or should it be moved?
07:08:20 AM Jul 23rd 2010
There haven't been any objections, so I'm moving it, okay?
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