Bill Wall's Wonderful World of Chess

by Bill Wall

In 1485, Pedro Arbues (1441-1485), Dominican member of the Inquisition, ordered victims of persecutions to stand in as figures in a game of living chess.  The game was played by two blind monks.  Each time the captured piece was taken, the person representing that piece was put to death.

On March 18, 1584, Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) died of a heart attack while setting up a chess board for a game of chess against his advisor, Boris Godunov.

In 1598, Paolo Boi (1528-1598), one of the leading chess players of the 16^th century died in Naples.  Historian H.J.R. Murray says he was poisoned in by jealous rivals.  Other sources say he caught a cold when hunting and died as a result of it.

On May 18, 1853, Lionel Kieseritzky (1806-1853), died penniless at a charity hospital for the insane in Paris and was buried in a pauper’s grave.  Only one person came to his funeral, a waiter at the Café de la Régence.  The location of his exact plot has not been found.

On January 3, 1866, William Henry Russ (1833-1866) one of America’s leading compiler of chess problems, died in a hospital after trying to commit suicide.  He adopted an 11-year old girl and proposed to her when she was 21.  When he rejected him, he shot her four times in the head.  He left her for dead (she survived), then tried to commit suicide by jumping into the river to drown himself.  However, the tide was out and the water was not deep enough.  He climbed out of the river and shot himself in the head.  He died 10 days later in a hospital, lacking a will to live.

On October 25, 1872, Pierre Saint-Amant (1800-1872), a leading French chess master, died after being thrown from his carriage at his chateau near Algiers, Algeria.

On June 22, 1874, Howard Staunton (1810-1874) died of a heart attack at his home in London while working on his last chess book, Chess: Theory and Practice, which was published in 1876.  His grave had been unmarked and neglected until 1997.  Then, a memorial stone bearing an engraving of a chess knight was raised over his grave.

On August 20, 1874, Thomas Wilson Barnes (1825-1874) died after going on a diet and losing 130 pounds in 10 months (he originally weighed 220 pounds).  No one really knows the cause of death and some suspected stomach cancer.  He was one of the strongest English chess players in the 1850s.  He scored more wins than anyone else against Paul Morphy, defeating him 8 times.  Morphy considered him the strongest player he had ever encountered.

On July 10, 1884, Paul Morphy (1837-1884) died of a stroke while taking a cold bath at his home in New Orleans.  He had taken a long walk during the afternoon and returned for a bath.  He remained so long in the bathroom that his mother grew alarmed and went up, to find him dead in the bath.  The cause was congestion of the brain following the shock of cold water to an overheated body. The funeral took place very quietly the next day.  Only some relatives and a few friends were present.

On June 20, 1888, Johann Zukertort (1842-1888) died of a stroke while playing chess at Simpson’s, a London coffee-house.  While playing a chess game with Sylvain Meyer, Zukertort fainted.  Instead of calling for medical help, he was taken to the British Chess Club in an unconscious state.  They then took him to Charing Cross Hospital where they diagnosed the problem as a cerebral attack.  He never regained consciousness, and died at 10 a.m. the next day.  The cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage.  At the time, Zukertort was also in the middle of a tournament at the British Chess Club and was in 1^st place.  He was scheduled to play a match with Blackburne on June 23, 1888 and Bird on June 26, 1888.

On April 14, 1891, George Mackenzie (1837-1891) was found dead at a hotel in New York.  A hotel worker called at his room and found him dead in bed.  He had terminal tuberculosis before his death.  The day before, he visited the Manhattan Chess Club and was arranging to challenge the winner of the forthcoming match between Blackburne and Gunsberg.  William Steinitz reported that his death was from an intentional overdose of morphine.  This rumor was started by a doctor who refused to sign a certificate for an insurance policy because the doctor had not been paid a fee.

On May 15, 1901, Johannes von Minckwitz (1843-1901) committed suicide by stepping in front of an electric car near Biebrich, Germany.  He lost both arms and died May 20, 1901.

On June 17, 1906, Henry Pillsbury died of syphilis, which he caught from a prostitute in Saint Petersburg about 10 years before his death.   In March, 1905, he tried to jump out a 4^th story window at the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia.  He was stopped by several nurses and doctors.  He died at Friends Asylum in Frankford, Pennsylvania.  His obituary in the New York Times stated that he died from an “illness contracted through overexertion of his memory cells.”

On August 12, 1909 Rudolf Swiderski committed suicide in Leipzig.  He poisoned himself, then shot himself in the head.  There were allegation of perjury in connection with a love affair and he was to face legal proceedings.

On September 11, 1913, Dr. Julius Perlis (1880-1913), died in a mountain climb in the Alps.  During a pleasure trip, he went astray and spent the night on a mountain.  He died of extreme exposure to low temperatures during a climb in the Austrian Inntaler Alps (Hochtor-Ostgrat).  He froze to death.

On December 27, 1918, Carl Schlechter (1874-1918) died from pneumonia and starvation in Budapest, Hungary, during the war-imposed famine in Central Europe.  He never mentioned to any of his acquaintances that he needed food or money.  He was found in a room without any money, heat or food.  He was buried in Budapest on December 31, 1918.

On January 31, 1924, Curt von Bardeleben (1861-1924) threw himself out of the second floor window of his boarding home in Berlin.  He was living in extreme poverty at the time.

In May, 1931, Andors Wachs of Hungary had just checkmated his opponent at a chess club in Hungary.  He then dropped his head on the table and died of a heart attack.

On April 20, 1932, Edgar Colle (1897-1932) died in Gand, Belgium, after an operation for a gastric ulcer.  He survived three operations for a gastric ulcer, but died after a 4^th operation.

On November 11, 1932, Frederik Yates (1884-1932) died in his sleep at his home in London from a gas leak due to a faulty gas pipe connection.  It was not suicide.  A gas company official proved that no gas tap was turned on.  It was ruled an accidental death.  He was buried at Leeds on November 16, 1932.

On December 14, 1934, Paul Leonhardt (1877-1934) died of a heart attack while playing chess at a chess club.

On July 29, 1938, Nikolai Krylenko (1885-1938), who headed the Soviet chess association, was executed in Stalin’s purges.  His trial lasted 20 minutes, he was then found guilty and immediately shot.

On February 17, 1940, former New England chess champion Harold Morton (1906-1940), died in a car crash in Iowa when he hit a truck.  His passenger, chess master I.A. Horowitz, survived.  The two were giving simultaneous chess exhibitions throughout the country.

In April 1940, David Przepiorka (1880-1940) died in a mass execution outside Warsaw.  During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he was present at a forbidden meeting of the Warsaw Chess Circle.  The Gestapo arrested everyone there.  Most of the players, including Przepiorka, were taken to Palmiry, Poland,  and killed by the Germans in a mass execution.  Over 2,000 men and women were executed there by the Nazis.

On September 3, 1941, Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky (1894-1941) died during the siege of Leningrad by the Germans.  He was on a barge on Lake Ladoga, east of Leningrad, trying to escape the city, when a German aircraft bombed the barge.  He was the only one killed on the barge, which was displaying Red Cross flags.

On October 2, 1941, Karel Treybal was charged will illegal possession of a firearm (a pistol) by the Nazis and condemned to death.  He was executed the same day in Prague.

On March 7, 1942, Sergey Belavenets , former Moscow chess champion, died in combat in Novgorod, Russia.

On April 18 1942, Karl Leonid Kubbel (1891-1942), a chess problemist, died during the siege of Leningrad.

In August, 1942, Alexey Troitzky (1866-1942) died of starvation during the siege of Leningrad.

In 1942 Ilya Rabinovich (1891-1942) was evacuated from Leningrad, but died of malnutrition in a hospital in Perm, Russia.

On August 26, 1943, Vladimir Petrov died in a prison camp in Russia.  He was sentenced to 10 years in a corrective labor camp (Gulag) for criticizing decreased living standards in Latvia since the Soviet annexation of 1940.  He died at Kotlas from an inflammation of the lungs.

In 1944, Salo Landau (1903-1944) was gassed by the Nazis in a German concentration camp in Poland.  He was sent to a forced labor camp in Graditz, Poland and died sometime between October 1943 and March 1944.  His wife and daughter were sent to Auschwitz, where they were gassed and died in 1944 in an Auschwitz gas chamber.

On November 9, 1944, Frank Marshall (1877-1944) was returning home from Jersey City, New Jersey where he had gone for an evening of bingo.  He collapsed on Van Vorst Street and died.

On December 20, 1944, George Sturgis (1891-1944), president of the US Chess Federation, died of a heart attack in Boston after returning from his honeymoon.

On April 17, 1945, Klaus Junge (1924-1945), a German officer, was killed in action at Welle, Germany.  As a lieutenant, he refused to surrender and was killed by Allied troops in the battle of Welle on the Luneburg Heath, close to Hamburg, three weeks before World War II ended. (George Koltanowski claimed that Junge was stabbed to death in a chess club fight.)

On March 11, 1952, Jan Foltys (1908-1952) died of leukemia.  In 1951, he qualified for the Interzonal tournament in Saltsjobaden, Sweden, but died before it took place.

On June 18, 1952, Efim Bogoljubov (1889-1952) suffered a heart attack after concluding a simultaneous chess exhibition in Triberg, Germany.

In 1952, Juan Quesada, Cuban chess champion, died of a heart attack during an international tournament in Havana.

In 1959, a Soviet scientist killed another Soviet scientist at a Soviet research station in Vostok, Antarctica after a chess game argument.  The losing player got so mad, he killed his opponent with an axe.  After the incident, the Soviets banned chess at their Antarctic stations.

In 1960, an American sailor got into a fight with in a Greenwich Village bar when a spectator criticized the sailor’s chess game.  The sailor struck the spectator with a broke beer bottle, which cut his jugular vein.  The sailor was eventually acquitted of murder and charged with accidental death instead.

On October 25, 1962, Abe Turner, an American chess master, was stabbed 9 times in the back by a fellow employee, Theodore Smith, at the Chess Review office.  His body was placed in a safe and found by the superintendent of the building later that afternoon.

On November 3,1963, Boris Kostic (1887-1963) died of blood poisoning from a scratch in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

In 1964, Raymond Weinstein, a chess master, killed an 83-year old man in a nursing home.  He was judged mentally ill and confined to Ward’s Island for the mentally ill.

On July 31, 1965, E. Forry Laucks (1897-1965), founder of the Log Cabin Chess Club, collapsed of a heart attack and died after the 6^th round of the U.S. Open in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

On May 26, 1967, Gideon Stahlberg (1908-1967) died of a heart attack during the 1967 Leningrad International chess tournament.

On September 25, 1968, Russian grandmaster Vladimir Simagin (1919-1968) died of a heart attack while playing in a chess tournament in Kislovodsk, Russia.

In 1970, Charles Khachiyan, President of the New Jersey Chess Assoication, died of a heart attack while playing chess at the Montclair Chess Club in New Jersey.

On October 31, 1971, Alexander Zaitsev died of thrombosis (blood clot) as a consequence of a leg operation to have one of his legs lengthened.

On October 4, 1972, USCF business manager Kenneth Harkness (1898-1972) died of a heart attack on a train in Yugoslavia on his way to a FIDE meeting in Skopje, Yugoslavia, where the chess Olympiad was to take place.

On July 24, 1975, Nicholas Rossolimo (1910-1975) fell from a flight of stairs in Greenwich Village, New York and died of his head injuries.  He had been giving chess lessons late at night.

In 1979, Patrick McKenna, a prisoner in Nevada, strangled his Las Vegas cellmate, Jack J. Robles, after an argument over a chess game.  At age 63, he has been on death row for over 30 years.  He was denied the latest in a long line of appeals.

On November 6, 1979, Cecil Purdy (1906-1979) died of a heart attack while playing chess in the Sydney, Australia chess championship.  His opponent was Ian Parsonage.  His last words were, “I have a win, but it will take some time.”

On October 21, 1982, Ed Edmondson (1920-1982) died of a heart attack while playing chess on a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii.

On December 9, 1983, Janos Flesch (1933-1983) died in a car wreck in Whitstable, England.  He was returning from the Kasparov-Korchnoi match in London to a tournament in Ramsgate when he became involved in a car accident.  He and his wife died in the crash.

In 1986, Grandmaster Georgy Agzamov (1954-1986) fell between some rocks at a beach and died.  He had just finished a chess tournament in Sevastopol and was taking a shortcut to go swimming.  He fell off a cliff and got stuck between two rocks.  Several people heard him yell for help, but he was too deep down in the rocks and died before a rescue team could get to him.  At one time he was ranked number 8 in the world, with a 2728 rating.

In 1989, Karen Grigorian (1947-1989) committed suicide by jumping.

In 1992, Gyorgy Negysey (1893-1992) died just short of his 99^th birthday.  He was one of the longest-lived chess masters.

In 1993, a person was shot and killed while playing chess with a friend outdoors in Bosnia.  It was the first recorded killing of a chess player by sniper fire.  In 1996, a chess tournament was held to raise funds to assist in clearing Bosnia of leftover mines.

In 1997, Alvis Vitolins (1938-1997) committed suicide by jumping.

In 2000, GM Vladimir Bagirov (1936-2000) died of a heart attack when in a winning position in a tournament game in Finland.  He had just finished a move while in time pressure and his flag fell.  As both players moved to a separate board to reconstruct the game, he collapsed and died.

In 2000, Latvian grandmaster Aivars Gipslis (1937-2000) died of a stroke while playing chess in Berlin.  He was playing for a local Berlin chess club when he collapsed from a stroke during the chess game.  He died in a German hospital after being in a coma for several weeks.

In 2000, Laurence Douglas stabbed Craig Williams to death over a chess game in Poughkeepsie, New York.  Williams beat Douglas in a chess game that had a $5 wager.  Williams took a $5 bill from Douglas after the game and Douglas then stabbed Williams 16 times.

In 2001, Alexei Suetin (1926-2001) died of a heart attack after returning home from the Russian Seniors Chess Championship.

On October 27, 2003, Essam Ahmed Ali (1964-2003), an International Master and Egypt’s top chess player, died of malaria after returning home from the All Africa Games chess tournament in Nigeria.  The 60-year old head of the Egyptian chess delegation, Mohammed Labib, died of the same disease the next day.  Both were incorrectly diagnosed in Egypt after becoming ill.  Both were bitten by an infected mosquito that gave them malaria.

In 2004, at the Canadian Open, Donal Hervieux collapsed and died over the chess board while playing a FIDE master during round 8.

On July 26, 2006, Jessie Gilbert, a rising British female chess star, fell through a window in her room at the Hotel Labe in Pardubice in the Czech Republic.  She won the Women’s World Amateur Championship when she was 11.  Police believe she may have been sleepwalking.

In July 2007, Bernard Papet, age 73, died right after completing his 10^th round game in the Veteran’s French championship.

In 2007, GM Maxim Sorokin (1968-2007) died in a car wreck on his way from Elista, Kalmykia to Volgograd.

In October 2008, David Christian killed Michael Steward over a chess game.  The two got into a fight while playing chess at Christian’s home in Iowa.

On May 8, 2010, Andor Lilienthal (1911-2010) died three days after he turned 99.

Causes of Death

Alzheimer’s disease – Jack Battell (76)

Appendicitis – Nikolai Grigoriev (43)

Automobile wreck – Janos Flesch (50), Guillermo Garcia (36), Harold Morton (34), GM Maxim Sorokin  (39)

Bood poisoning – Boris Kostic (76)

Bright’s disease – Alexander McDonnell (37)

Cancer – Rosendo Balinas (liver cancer – 47), Gerardo Barbero (eye cancer - 40), Johan Barendregt (lung cancer - 57), Claude Bloodgood (lung cancer – 77), Humphrey Bogart (esophagus cancer - 57) Botvinnik (83), Ricardo Calvo (esophagus cancer – 59), Campomanes (83), Denker (brain cancer – 90), Geller (73), Igor Ivanov (esophagus cancer – 58), Lipschuetz (lung cancer – 42), William Martz (37), Nimzowitsch (49), Petrosian (55), Robatsch (stomach and throat cancer – 71), Alexander Roshal (pancreatic cancer - 71), Daniel Yanovsky (74)

Choking – Alekhine (53)

Cholera – Elijah Williams (44)

Diabetes – Mikhail Chigorin (58), Bent Larsen (75), Tony Miles (46), Louis Paulsen (58)

Died in prison camp – Vladimir Petrov (35)

Died While Playing Chess – Bagirov (64), Bogoljubow (63), Ed Edmundson (62), Forry Laucks, Gipslis (63), Leonhardt (57), Cecil Purdy (73), Juan Quesada, Simagin (48), Stahlberg (59), Herman Steiner (50), Suetin (75), Zukertort (45)

Died While Watching Chess – Capablanca (54)

Dropsy –Johann Allgaier (60)

Explosion – Ilyin-Genevsky (47), Vera Menchik (38)

Fall – Agzamov (32), von Bardeleben (63), Rossolimo (65), Saint-Amant (72)

Froze to death – Julius Perlis (33)

Gas – Yates (48), Arpad Vajda

Gassed – Salo Landau (41)

Heart Attack/Heart Failure – Anderssen (60), Bagirov (64), Blackburne (82), Bogoljuobow (63), Gyula Breyer (28), Ed Edmondson (62), Euwe (80), Kenneth Harkness (74), Albert Hodges (83), Keres (59), Koltanowski (93), Emanuel Lasker (72), Paul Leonhardt (57), Frank Marshall (67), Najdorf (87), Cecil Purdy (73), Quesada, Reshevsky (81), Simagin (49), Smyslov (89), Stahlberg (59), Staunton (64), Leonid Stein (38), Herman Steiner (50), Suetin (74), Alexey Vyzmanavin (39)

Hydropsy – A. Deschapelles (67)

Intestinal problems – Alexander Woitkiewicz

Kidney failure – Fischer (64), Avrid Kubbel (49), Tal (56)

Leukemia – Jan Foltys (43), Max Pavey (39)

Liver failure – Gideon Stahlberg (59)

Lupus – Donald Byrne (45)

Natural causes – Arthur Dake (90)

Pneumonia – Edmar Mednis (65), Nimzowitsch (49), Daniel Noteboom (21), Schlechter (44)

Poisoned – Paolo Boi (70), Swidirski (31)

Malaria – IM Essam Ahmed Al i(39)

Murdered – Paolo Boi (poisoned - 70)

Radiation poisoning – Max Pavey (39)

Scarlet fever – Reti (40)

Shot – Klaus Junge , Nikolai Krylenko, Leonid Kubbel (51), David Przepiorka (60), Rudolf Swidirski (31)

Stabbed – Abe Turner (38)

Starvation – Rabinovich (65), Schlechter (44), Troitzky (76)

Stroke – Bourdonnais (45), Amos Burn (77), Gipslis (63), Gufeld (66), Morphy (47), Zukertort (45)

Suicide – von Bardeleben (fall – 63), Jessie Gilbert (fall - 19), Karen Grigorian (fall – 42), George Mackenzie (overdose -54), Johannes Minckwitz (hit by train – 58), Lembit Oll (fall - 35), Rudolf Swiderski, Alvis Vitolins (fall - 59), Stefan Zweig (61)

Syphillis – Harry Pillsbury (34)

Thrombosis – Alexander Zaitsev

Tuberculosis (Consumption) – Johann Bauer (30), Rudolf Charousek (27), Cecil de Vere (30), Janowski (59), Mackenzie (54), Mir Sultan Khan (61), Karl Walbrodt (31), Henri Weenink (39)

Typhoid fever – Samuel Boden (56), Henry Buckle (41)

Ulcer – Colle (34)

Weight loss – Thomas Barnes (49)

Yellow fever – William Schlumberger (37)

The life expectancy of professional chess masters seems to be 62.9 years.

Reported deaths, but inaccurate, include Paul Keres, Leo Forgacs (was supposed to have died in a revolutionary riot in Hungary in 1921; he died in 1930), Paul Morphy (several French publications announced his death in 1879), Charles Gilberg (reported dead in 1889, but he died in 1897), Alekhine (supposedly executed in Odessa), G. Lazard (reported dead in 1924; he died in 1948), Bill Wall (reported dead in 2009 on the Internet, but I am still kicking – wrong Bill Wall), Jacques Mieses (reported dead in 1937), Alexis Troitzky (reported dead in 1919; he died in 1942), Tal (reported dead in 1969 in a number of Yugoslav newspapers).

Bill Wall's Wonderful World of Chess

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