The world fell in love with Anya Taylor-Joy in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit which led to a upturn in the popularity of chess. Having caught the chess bug during the past few years Mick Flannery appears to have fallen down the rabbit hole more that most, for the singer-songwriter who was recently nominated for The Choice Music Prize has announced ‘Night At The Opera’, an unusual concept album based upon moves undertaken in well-known chess games – with a portion of the profits going to the charity Effective Altruism.

“A lockdown-induced chess-obsession was the inspiration for these songs. A chess piece e.g. knight, pawn… is given a corresponding musical chord, and thus the song structure follows the moves of a chosen (mostly famous) chess game. The lyrics of the songs deal primarily with the often-complex lives of the grandmasters. The audio will be widely available. The NFT idea is connected to videos where people (chess-nerds) can watch the chess game play out in time and harmony with the chords of the song. There’ll be 2D and 3D versions of these and they’ll be sold as digital tokens with 20% of all profits going to effective altruism”

We’re fairly sceptical about NFT’s here at GoldenPlec as they appear to be about as useful as a bag of smoke, but we are willing to give Mick the benefit of the doubt on this one as it is for a good cause. Listen to ‘King of Hate’ the first track from the album which is based on the moves from a game between Paul Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard which took place in Paris in 1858.

Night at the Opera

Paul Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard

Paris, 1858

Take Your Beating Well

Adolf Anderssen vs Jean Dufresne

“The Evergreen Game”

Berlin, 1852

Pride And Sorrow

Paul Morphy vs Unknown amateur

Morphy begins a rook down.

New Orleans, 1858

Rashid And Firebird

Rashid Nezhmetdinov vs Samsonov (Rashid’s mentor)

Kazan, 1929

I’ll Learn To See

Judit Polgar (12yrs) vs Pavlina Chilingirova

Thessaloniki, 1988

Planet Ivanchuk

Vassily Ivanchuk vs Sergey Karjakin

Song ends at Vassily’s queen sacrifice.

Nice, 2008

Misha Misha

Mikhail Tal vs ??Mikhail Botvinnik

Song ends at Tal’s famous Knight sacrifice.

Moscow 1960

Western Hero

Bobby Fischer (13yrs) vs Donald Byrne

Game Of The Century

New York City, 1956

Big Bang

Albert Einstein vs Robert Oppenheimer

Song ends as Oppenheimer resigns.

Princeton, 1933 (allegedly)

King Of Hate

Alexander Alekhine vs Rodzynski

The Wayward Queen

Paris, 1913

I Do Not Run

Gary Kasparov vs Guy West

Song ends as West resigns.

Via Telex 1977

Funny Things

Awonder Liang vs Gunay

Mammadzada

Polgar Challenge (2021), Online