The dramatic draw that takes place halfway through the film follows the obscure game Macht-Weenink 1930. The scene begins as Luzhin's opponent is in a losing position. Knowing he is ahead but with pressure mounting, Luzhin makes the amateur-grade blunder from the original game. He loses his knight for nothing. Having blown his chance to win, Luzhin forces a draw.
The line "Pushkin's doomed duelist" refers to the character Vladimir Lensky in Alexander Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin." The author of the novel "The Luzhin Defense," Vladimir Nabokov, was responsible for an acclaimed translation and commentary of "Eugene Onegin."
At the beginning of the movie, Luzhin writes the following moves into his notebook: 1.d4 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6. This is the mainline of the Staunton Gambit opening. Although no longer popular, this opening was respected during the film's depicted time period.
In the first game Luzhin plays against his father, Luzhin wins through a well-known trap in the Blackburne-Shilling Gambit. The entirety of the game is as follows: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4. Nxe5 Qg5 5. Nxf6 Qxg2 6. Rf1 Qxe4+ 7. Be2 Nf3#
In the novel, Valentinov's first name is never mentioned; on the contrary, Luzhin's first name is revealed only in the closing sentences. Another dissimilarity is that the novel ends up by Luzhin's suicide, thereby his game would be never finished.