In the computer age, fans not only can follow grandmaster games played thousands of miles away in real time, they can literally count down to checkmate.

Cyber-spectators watching the final preliminary round of the US Championship in St. Louis this month got a chance to begin the countdown when GM Ben Finegold decided to play on after 82 moves. Finegold had reached an endgame with a lone king, facing Alexander Shabalov’s king, bishop and knight, a textbook checkmate.

In addition to watching the game’s finish, the fans could click on a database and know immediately that Shabalov was 28 moves away from delivering checkmate.

Finegold’s only hope was that his opponent, with little time, would make a series of errors that would stretch the denouement out by 50 moves, that is until move 132, when he could claim a draw.

But databases showed that Shabalov played almost flawlessly as he nudged Finegold’s king closer to the edge of the board. It was Finegold who blundered, shortening the game by a half-dozen moves. Finegold finally resigned on move 95 when he was 10 moves away from getting mated.