Alfred started off by brazenly sacrificing his queen's pawn, a move that Bob had never really understood the purpose of. After both players had castled, Bob moved his queen out toward Alfred's king, threatening to checkmate in a few moves. Alfred responded by capturing Bob's queen with his bishop.
Bob immediately recognized the move as illegal, but he hesitated. That move looked familiar. Bob carefully picked up the story he had written and looked through it. Yes, there it was - he had gotten the pieces mixed up in his head, and there was no way Alfred could capture his queen.
But it had happened. Intrigued, Bob let it go, and instead sent both his knights forward, protected by pawns. Alfred captured one of them with his bishop. The obvious response was to capture the bishop - but no, that wasn't what the story said. Bob left the bishop alone. From now on, he was following his own script.
As the game progressed, Bob's king got pinned in a precarious position behind a pawn. He was hopelessly behind in material - seven points to twenty points, to be exact. With an air of finality, Alfred grabbed his rook and sent it forward to support his queen. "Mate in one move," he grunted.
Bob took another look at his script. "Rook to H4." Bob put his finger on his rook and slid it to the other end of the board. "Checkmate." Alfred's rook had been the only thing defending his back rank, and his king had nowhere to run.
Alfred hung his head briefly, then frowned and looked back at the board. His frown turned to that of perfectionist putting the finishing touch on a project as he slid Bob's rook from H4 to H5. "You switched columns there," he said politely. Then he put out his hand to shake.
Bob set down his paper and shook hands with Alfred in awe. Alfred grinned. "Well done, Bob. Care to play again?"
Weakly, Bob answered, "No thank you."
Alfred scooped the pieces off the board, then flipped the board over and tossed them into the back with a practiced motion. "Some other time, then. I'll be itching for a rematch." With that, he stood up, closing the board at the same time, and walked off.