Game Analysis – Sherlock Holmes vs James Moriarty

Guy Ritchie’s 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows culminates not in a typical action brawl, but in a tense chess duel between Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty. The two adversaries sit on a snowy balcony at night and agree to a 5-minute blitz game (fast chess).

Uniquely, the film doesn’t focus on the board itself. The camera stays on the players’ faces, emphasizing the psychological battle rather than the pieces. Notably, the moves are announced in descriptive notation (e.g., “King to Rook Two”) instead of modern algebraic notation, which is historically accurate for 1891 England. The filmmakers even used an authentic 19th-century chess clock (made by Fattorini & Sons of Bradford in 1883) to add period accuracy

Real-Life Inspiration: Larsen vs. Petrosian, 1966

It turns out that a famous real game heavily inspires this fictional game. The moves Holmes and Moriarty play are loosely based on a grandmaster encounter from the Second Piatigorsky Cup, Santa Monica 1966: Bent Larsen vs. Tigran Petrosian. In actual history, Bent Larsen (one of the world’s top players from Denmark) faced Tigran Petrosian (then World Champion from Armenia) and won with an ingenious queen sacrifice. That real game has become legendary, particularly for Larsen’s daring decision on move 25 to sacrifice his queen for a mere pawn – a move of profound strategic insight

The film mirrors this critical moment directly.

However, the movie isn’t an exact move-for-move copy. The filmmakers made some tweaks, including reversing the colors of the players

In the 1966 game, Larsen played White and Petrosian Black; in the film, Moriarty has the white pieces and Holmes the black. (This inversion was perhaps done to keep Holmes, the protagonist, visually on the “defensive” side, or simply to avoid an obvious copy)

They also altered the opening: in reality, Larsen opened with 1.e4 (a King’s Pawn opening, met by Petrosian’s Sicilian Defense 1…c5), but in the movie Moriarty begins with 1.c4 (the English Opening), to which Holmes replies …e5.

So the early moves differ, but by the time the game reaches the critical position in the late middlegame, the film converges with the spirit of the Larsen–Petrosian clash. The film’s endgame kicks in around “move 25,” and from that point on, the sequence closely follows a variation of the real 1966 game’s tactics

The Queen’s Gambit: Holmes’s Decisive Sacrifice

Moriarty (White) has just played an innocuous bishop move (Bg7 in algebraic, corresponding to an inaccuracy that set the stage for Holmes’s strike. Holmes (Black) sees only one way to maintain his advantage – and it’s a bombshell. 25. Qxg6!! – Holmes’s queen swoops down to g6, capturing a pawn in front of Moriarty’s king. This is the bold queen sacrifice that leaves spectators (and Moriarty) gasping. Giving up your queen for a pawn is rarely seen, but here it has a deep purpose. By removing the pawn on g6 (which had been a key pawn shielding Black’s king), Holmes opens a line toward the king and destabilizes the defense.

The move comes with a double exclamation point (!!) in chess notation for its brilliance. It’s the very same concept Bent Larsen employed in 1966, sacrificing the queen not for immediate material gain, but for long-term positional and tactical advantages

At this moment, Moriarty believes Holmes has blundered terribly – after all, Holmes is now without his most powerful piece. This is when Moriarty delivers his triumphant line – “I think you just lost your most valuable piece.”

To which Holmes says: “But a winning strategy sometimes necessitates sacrifice.”

But Holmes, unfazed, had already planned several moves. By luring the f7-pawn away to g6, Holmes has cleared the path for a deadly attack. Moriarty’s choice to accept the sacrifice leads to a shorter, spectacular finish – fitting for a movie climax. After the queen sacrifice and its acceptance, Holmes wastes no time in executing the decisive mating attack.

Bxe6+ – Holmes’s bishop captures Black’s knight on that square and delivers a check to the black king. By eliminating the knight on e6, Holmes removes an important defender of Black’s king. The check forces Black to respond immediately. Moriarty moves his king from g8 to h7 to escape the check

Rh3+ – Without pausing, Holmes swings his rook from its post on the d5 file over to h3, along the third rank, giving check along the open h-file. Moriarty blocks the check by sliding his dark-squared bishop from g7 to h6, directly in front of the rook. This move is essentially forced as the king had no safe square to run to on that move, so blocking was the only option. Holmes’s other black squared bishop now captures the blocking bishop on h6. After a rook exchange in the coming moves, Sherlock plays an ultimate move, Bishop to f7, a quiet but lethal placement. This move solidifies his position and cuts off Moriaty’s king’s path of escape as our protagonist just a move later delivers Bf8#, which delivered a fantastic discovered check and mate to the black king!

This finish wasn’t just cinematic flair. It was a real chess masterpiece – a sequence based on sound tactics, inspired by the legendary 1966 Larsen vs. Petrosian game. Holmes’s queen sacrifice and the ensuing combination remain one of the most accurate and beautiful portrayals of chess ever shown on screen.

In the end, it wasn’t brute force that decided the match – it was foresight, precision, and the quiet brilliance of a man who knew that sometimes, “a winning strategy necessitates sacrifice.”

References –

https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5085/sherlock-holmes-vs-professor-james-moriarty-a-game-of-shadow-chess-game-positio#:~:text=1,0

https://www.chess.com/blog/SFN/sherlock-holmesa-game-of-shadows