Zaphod42 posted:

The chess match in Mexico I swear they deliberately placed the camera so that you can see the players but not the board. You just see their arms moving.

Its like they were afraid of showing the chess board and didn't want to put the effort in to make sure the boards weren't stupid, and yet with most of these matches being historic record you could pretty trivially just replay the moves exactly, or as you said they have chess consultants who are exceptionally capable and could have invented new games if needed.

I guess there's also some pacing issues, they want to focus on the character story so can only spend so much time on the chess matches. But still, show me more of the board positions that actually matter. The show seems to assume you won't even try to follow it so they don't let you.