Emmett Clayton (Laurence Harvey) is the world champion chess player. However, when he earned this title, the previous champion, Dudek, was retired. Now Dudek has come out of retirement to see if he can beat the great Clayton. However, when Clayton realizes Dudek IS better, he decides to kill the man in order to preserve his precious ego as well as his reputation.
Someone watching this show today might not understand the context for the show. Just a year before, there was a huge match between Bobby Fischer and the Soviet champion, Boris Spassky. During this match as well as before it even began, Fischer's extremely neurotic behavior made newspaper headlines all over the world. His antics were so bad, many Americans were rooting for Spassky! Clearly the match and odd behaviors in "Columbo" are highly reminiscent of this well-publicized match...though, of course, no one tried to murder Spassky...and Fischer actually won.
Laurence Harvey was excellent here as the highly strung and neurotic champion. This didn't surprise me at all, as Harvey was AMAZING at playing scum-bags and did so in many movies. Sadly, this handsome and talented man died shortly after this episode...and he was only 45 years old.
Overall, this is a fascinating and well written episode. Well worth seeing and full of great twists and turns. Very well done.