The Hazards of Chess

by Bill Wall

We have all read about the benefits of chess such as it can raise your IQ, it helps
prevent Alzheimer’s, it exercises both sides of the brain, it increases your
creativity, it improves your memory, it increases problem-solving skills, it
improves reading skills, it improves concentration, it teaches planning and
foresight, etc. (see http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/benefits.htm) But
what about the hazards of chess? It is possible that chess is harmful to the mind,
body and soul. Here are a few items to consider when playing chess or problems
a chess player may encounter.

Alcoholics
Heavy drinkers included Joseph Henry Blackburne, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail
Tal, Igor Ivanov, Aleksander Wojtkiewicz.

Arrested chess players

Many chess players have been arrested. Players include Alexandre Deschapelles
(1780-1847) for being involved in the French insurrection of 1832, Armand
Blackmar (1826-1888) for publishing seditious music, George Mackenzie for
desertion during the Civil War, Canadian champion Albert William Ensor for
counterfeiting, James Mortimer for refusing to reveal the author of a libelous
article, Joseph Blackburne, arrested as a French spy for sending chess moves in
the mail, Ossip Bernstein, arrested by the secret Bolshevik police and ordered
executed by a firing squad, William Winter for sedition, Norman Whitaker for
attempted extortion, Ludek Pachman for incitement to anti-German
demonstrations, Pal Benko for trying to defect to the West, Bobby Fischer (twice),
Garry Kasparov. In 1982, Boris Gulko and his wife were arrested for protesting at
the Moscow Interzonal in Moscow. They were trying to immigrate to Israel. In
1987, Grandmaster Tony Miles (1955-2001) was arrested at 10 Downing Street in
London after trying to get in after midnight to talk to British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher about payments owed to him by the British Chess
Federation. He was eventually hospitalized for two months from a mental
breakdown. In 1988, International Master James Sherwin was arrested on stock
manipulation charges. In 1993, a chess player in San Antonio got so mad at a
tournament director for poor pairings and bad tournament conditions at a hotel
that he tore down and ripped up all the pairing sheets that were posted for the
next day. The police were called and he was arrested. In 2001, Vaughn Bennett,
executive director of the Olympic Chess House, was arrested for unlawful
trespassing onto the grounds of the U.S. Chess Center in Washington, DC. In May
2003, Grandmaster Alex Sherzer, 31, was arrested in Mobile, Alabama for
allegedly attempting to solicit sex from a 15-year-old-girl he met on the Internet
and who was living at a juvenile detention center. In 2004, the FIDE vice
president, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, was arrested by a group of security agents
during the final ceremonies of the 36th Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain. He was
approaching the stage to get the attention of FIDE President Ilyumzhinov about
some awards that had not been given out when the security people stepped in
front of him. The Calvia police said that he hit them, so they arrested him. In
2005, GM Vladimir Akopian was arrested at the Dubai airport in the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), having been mistaken for an individual of the same name wanted
by Interpol for murder. In April 2005, Grandmaster and former World Junior
Champion Maxim Dlugy was arrested in Moscow and charged with attempting to
defraud a metals plant in Russia of $9 million in bonds. He was transferred to a
prison in Perm, central Russia. He faced up to 10 years in prison. All the charges
against him were later dropped. In July 2006, two chess players tried to smuggle
cocaine in a wooden chess set in Trinidad, but were caught and arrested. The
cocaine, which weighed 6.8 kilograms, was valued at $3 million. In July 2009,
Gregory Alexander, an assistant to GM Susan Polgar, was arrested in San
Francisco for computer fraud and aggravated identity theft in stealing email
messages between USCF board members. In 1914, all the Russian chess masters
were arrested at the Mannheim, Germany Congress when World War I broke out.
The arrested players included Alexander Alekhine and Bogoljubow. Alekhine was
released after 6 weeks. (source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sep 8, 1914, p. 9) In 1918,
Lorenz Hansen, a Danish naturalized citizen, was arrested by the Federal
authorities, charged with using a secret code and spying. The secret code turned
out to be the moves in a correspondence game sent by post card. (source:
American Chess Bulletin 1918, p. 61) In December 1927, Dr. Joseph Eljas,
President of the Reval, Estonia Chess Club, was invited to a chess tournament in
Leningrad. As soon as he entered Russia, he was arrested by the Cheka. The
Cheka, claiming his notebooks, filled with chess problems, were a secret cipher.
He was charged for spying for a foreign power. (source: New York Times, Dec 8,
1927, p. 37) In February 1937, 13 chess players were arrested in Danzig for talking
Socialistic politics in between moves. The police charged them with trying to keep
alive the forbidden Social Democratic party. (source: Decatur Herald, Feb 13,
1937, p. 3) In 1951, James Bolton, age 22, the New England chess champion, was
arrested by the FBI for evading the draft. (source: New York Times, March 4, 1951,
p. 60) In May 1981, Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) was arrested in Pasadena,
California because he matched the description of a man who had just committed
a bank robbery in that area. He was held for two days, and then released on
$1,000 bail. In 1986, grandmaster Aleksander Wojtkiewicz (1963-2006) was
arrested and sent to prison in Latvia for dodging the Soviet Army draft. While in
prison, he studied chess and found a novelty in the Sicilian Defense, Accelerated
Dragon variation. The new move was coined the “Prison Novelty.”
Arrested for playing chess
You can get arrested for playing chess. Perhaps the first arrest associated with
chess was in 1624. On August 30, 1624, playwright Thomas Middleton (1580-
1627) was arrested in London after producing a play, A Game of Chess,
that satirized the proposed marriage of Prince Charles with a Spanish
princess. The play was performed in the Globe Theater in London. Its nine
performances, from August 5-14, 1624, was the greatest box-office hit and the
most talked about dramatic work of early modern London. After Middleton’s
arrest, the play was censored and was not allowed to be shown again. In 1973,
the police raided a chess tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. They arrested the
tournament director and confiscated the chess sets on charges of allowing
gambling (cash prizes to winners) and possession of gambling devices (the chess
sets). In 1988, undercover police arrested a chess player at a park in New York
City after he won a marked $5 bill against a cop posing as a construction worker
during a blitz game. The chess player was jailed for 3 days, his medication was
confiscated, and he had a heart attack. The arrest was finally tossed out by a
judge. Five years later, the city settled the wrongful arrest lawsuit out of court for
$100,000. In 1989, the police raided a chess tournament in Los Angeles. The
L.A.P.D. vice officers raided a nightly chess tournament held at Dad’s
Donuts. They cited three men for gambling after finding $1.50 on the table. The
police staged the raid after an undercover detective tried unsuccessfully to join a
blitz chess game. The detective then pulled out his badge and said “all of you are
under arrest,” as the L.A.P.D. swooped in. In 1971, Trevor Stowe, a chess antique
dealer, was arrested and charged in court in London for indecent exhibition on
display in his window. Each of the 32 pieces showed couples in sexual
positions. Stowe had to pay $132 in fines and court costs. In 1991, Arkady Flom,
a 64-year-old grandfather, was arrested in Manhattan after a young man sat
down to play chess with him in the park. The young man played so poorly
that Flom would give him pointers in exchange for $2. The young man
agreed. They played for 20 more minutes and the young fellow paid his
money. As soon as Flom put the money in his pocket, four NYPD officers
approached him, slapped him in handcuffs and read him his rights. He was
arrested for promoting gambling in the second degree and for possession of a
gambling device, his chess set. He was jailed for 3 days, his medication was
confiscated, and he had a heart attack. Five years later, he received a $1 million
settlement in a false arrest suit against New York City as the judge ruled that a
chess game was not “gambling” since it was a game of skill rather than chance
and the chess board was not “gambling equipment.” In 1992, police in New
Rochelle, NY arrested a player who refused to put away a chess board and pieces
at a library. Louis Taylor, 41, was reading a chess book and set up his own chess
pieces and board in the library. A librarian told him to put his game away. When
he refused, the police were called who cuffed Taylor and charged him with
trespassing. In July 2010, Oakland school board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge
was arrested when she refused to stop playing chess at the intersection of
Broadway and 14th Streets. In October, 2010, seven players were arrested for
playing chess in a playground in Inwood Hill Park, New York (Manhattan). The
chess tables in the park were off limits to adults if not accompanied by a
child. The charges were finally dismissed in April, 2011.
Assassination
In 1948, grandmaster David Bronstein (1924-2006) survived an assassination
attack during the first chess Interzonal in Saltsjobaden, Sweden. On the last day,
Bronstein was playing Tartakower when, suddenly, a Lithuanian made a lunge at
Bronstein to kill him. Several spectators grabbed the would-be assassin. The
attempted killer wanted to murder a Russian because he claimed the Russians
were responsible for sending his sister to Siberia and murdering her.

Banned
Chess has been banned from time to time, and chess players have been punished
for playing chess. In 1649, Tsar Alexei (1629-1676) banned chess in Russia.
Players caught playing chess were whipped and put in prison. In 1971, when
Mark Taimanov (1926- ) returned to the USSR after losing to Bobby Fischer 6-0, he
was banned from playing outside the country for several years and was stripped
of his title ‘Honored Master of Sport.’ He was a concert pianist and was not
allowed to give any more performances. He was also banned from writing any
articles and was deprived of his monthly stipend. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union
banned cosmonauts from playing chess in space with each other (they can play
against ground control personnel) after a fist fight once broke out between
cosmonauts after one of the cosmonauts lost his game to the other
cosmonaut. In 1993, chess was banned from American River College in California
because of disruptive behavior on people playing in the cafeteria and library.
Campus police ordered some chess players to stop playing chess. The players
refused and the campus police confiscated the chess board and pieces. In 1994,
chess was banned in Afghanistan by Taliban edicts. Players caught playing chess
were beaten or imprisoned. In 1996 chess and other clubs were banned from
some high schools in Salt Lake City, Utah. Most of the school board is Mormon
which condemns homosexuality. Rather than let gay high school students form an
organization, they banned all nonacademic clubs. School board members said
federal law gave them only two options: allow all extracurricular clubs or
eliminate them all. Some 30 clubs, including the chess club, are banned for 1996-
97. In 2005, Fair Haven Union High School in Vermont banned chess after the
school banned all games. The administration said that they did not want to have
students play cards in school, so they banned all games, including the chess
club. Despite that, the school tied for 1st place in the Vermont State Scholastic
Chess Championship in 2006. In 2007, a team of home-schooled students who
won the 2006 Arizona Scholastic Championship was banned from the 2007
championship. Rules were changed to not allow home-schooled students from
participating. Only public and private schools were allowed to participate in the
event. During the middle ages, chess was banned at Oxford University in
England. It was called “noxious, inordinate and unhonest,” according to National
Geographic.

Corruption
After a number of irregularities were found by financial auditors, government
prosecutors are investigating the Bulgarian Chess Federation for
corruption. Three-time Bulgarian Champion Grandmaster Kiril Georgiev called the
Federation a “money laundering machine.” The Bulgarian Chess Federation has
been charged with inflated financial spending, organization of false or nonexistent
tournaments, unreasonable travel expenses, etc. It has also been alleged that
Silvio Danailov, president of the Bulgarian Chess Federation, was involved in a
scheme to defraud other national Chess federations of significant cash. The
scam was supposedly accomplished by registering in Delaware a corporation with
the name “European Chess Union LLC”. That entity then opened a bank account in
Europe and convinced members of the real European Chess Union (a Switzerland-
based organization) to send their membership fees and other payments to the
wrong account. (source:www.purplepawn.com, June 2015)
Delusions
Some chess players, such as Bobby Fischer, suffered from delusions, a common
symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. In a recent poll of chess players at major
chess tournaments, players were asked what their rating was and if they thought
their rating should reflect their true current strength. All of the players knew
their actual ratings, yet 75% of them thought their rating underestimated their
true playing ability. The magnitude of their overconfidence was stunning: On
average, these competitive chess players estimated that they would win a match
against another player with the exact same rating as their own by a two-to-one
margin — a crushing victory. But the most likely outcome of such a match would
be a tie. Most of the players had delusions of grandeur. (source: “Why losers
have delusions of grandeur,” by Daniel Simons, New York Post, May 23,
2010) Paul Morphy suffered from delusions of persecution. He imagined himself
persecuted by people who wished to render his life intolerable. His delusions
centered on the husband of his elder sister, the administrator of his father’s
estate, who he believed was trying to rob him of his patrimony.
Depression
Many chess players are introverted and suffer from depression. Grandmaster
Lembit Oll suffered from depression and later committed suicide. Mikhail
Chigorin suffered from depression in his later life and burnt his chess pieces
before he died.

Die travelling to or from a chess tournament

You can die traveling from or to a chess tournament. 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. Guillermo Garcia (1953-1990), a Cuban grandmaster, died in a car wreck
on his way to the airport to catch a plane to play in the Chess Olympiad in Novi
Sad. On October 27, 2003, Esam Aly Ahmed (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. He was bitten by an infected
mosquito and was incorrectly diagnosed in Egypt after becoming ill. In 2007,
Grandmaster Maxim Sorokin (1968-2007) died a week after a traffic accident
while on his way from Elista, Kalmykia, returning from a chess tournament, to
Volgograd. 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 1935, Agnes Stevenson, one of the top
women chess players in the world, was killed after she walked into the propeller
of the plane she had been flying on. She was on her way to Warsaw to take part in
the Women’s World Chess Championship when the plane made a refueling stop
at Poznan. She left the plane to have her passport inspected. On returning to the
plane, she stepped in front of the plane and the rotating propeller hit her. In
September 1961, chess master Norman Whitaker (1890-1975), chess expert
Glenn Hartleb, and a 16-year-old boy were driving in Arkansas when they got into
a car wreck, killing Glenn Hartleb. Apparently, Whitaker and Hartleb were too
tired to drive, and they allowed the 16-year-old to drive. He lost control, hit a
bridge abutment and overturned the car. On August 20, 1999, Ken Horne, a Las
Vegas chess organizer, flying home in his own airplane from the US Open Chess
Championship in Reno, died after his aircraft crashed. He died along with his wife
after the plane crashed into a house in North Las Vegas. In April, 2013, six
members of the Melbourne Chess Club in Australia were returning from a chess
tournament in Canberra when their car rolled off the freeway. Two of the chess
players died. International Master James Morris (1994- ) was seriously injured in
that accident.

Disturbers
Sometimes, chess players go out of the way to disturb their opponent. In a 1977
match, Boris Spassky positioned himself in a curtained booth behind his
opponent’s chair, emerging, when it came time to play his turns, in, variously, a
sun visor, swimming goggles, and a ski mask. His rival, Viktor Korchnoi, lost four
games in a row before he recovered.

Drop Out of School

Many chess players drop out of school. Among those that dropped out of school
include Bobby Fischer, Lisa Lane, Walter Browne, Magnus Carlsen. Those that
dropped out of college include Wesley So. Sultan Khan never attended school
and was illiterate.

Eccentricity
Some chess players are known for their eccentricity. Eccentric players include
Paul Morphy, Aron Nimzowitsch, Carlos Torre, and Bobby Fischer. Viswanathan
Anand described Vassily Ivanchuk as the most eccentric chess player in the world.
Gambling
Chess players may become addicted gamblers. In December 2011, two
Vietnamese men were arrested for gambling on chess at a local café. Gambling is
illegal in Vietnam except in casinos. The two men had been gambling on chess
since 2009, betting up to $50,000 per game. In September 2013, police
confiscated chess sets, chess gear, tables, and chairs along Market Street in San
Francisco. Police said the games had begun to attract illegal gambling and drug
sales, and were getting complaints by nearby merchants. David Janowski would
take all his chess winnings and gamble it all away in the casinos.

Heart Attack While Playing Chess

You can die of a heart attack while playing chess. Players who died of a heart
attack or stroke while playing chess include Vladimir Bagirov (right after time
control and his flag fell), Efim Bogoljubow, Jose Capablanca, Ed Edmundson (died
of a heart attack while playing chess on a beach in Hawaii), Aivars Gipslis (had a
stroke and died while in a chess tournament in Berlin), Ivan the Terrible, Paul
Keres (on his way home from a chess tournament in which he won), Paul
Leonhardt, Cecil Purdy, Vladimir Simagin, Gideon Stahlberg, Howard Staunton
(died of a heart attack while writing his last chess book), Herman Steiner (died of
a heart attack during a round of the California State Championship), and Alex
Suetin. Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888) died of a stroke while playing chess at
Simpson’s, a London coffee-house. While playing 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 1st place. GM Adorjan and
Stewart Reuben had heart attacks while playing chess, but survived. In 1923, a
spectator watching the Ed Lasker – Frank Marshall chess match died of a heart
attack. 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. In 1944, Al Horowitz’s opponent died of a heart attack in
Kansas City just after Horowitz made a spectacular move. In 1952, Juan Quesada,
Cuban chess champion, died of a heart attack during an international tournament
in Havana. 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 6th round of the
U.S. Open in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1970, Charles Khachiyan, President of the
New Jersey Chess Association, died of a heart attack while playing chess at the
Montclair Chess Club in New Jersey. On January 17, 2010, Dale S. Lyons of Milton,
Vermont, died of a heart attack while attending a chess tournament in New
Hampshire. He suffered a fatal heart attack between the 3rd and 4th rounds of
the Portsmouth Open. He was 60 years old. During the 2014 chess Olympiad in
Norway, Kurt Meier of Seychelles died of a heart attack in the last round.

Mental Illness
The “highs” and “lows” a chess player experiences during a chess game, combined
with the anxiety, tension and stress of high-level chess, and the roller coaster of
emotions that go with a high-level chess game, repeated over and over again may
have some effect on the mind and perhaps cause mental illness. Chess players
who suffered mental illness may have included Paul Morphy, William Steinitz,
Harry Pillsbury, Akiba Rubinstein, Carlos Torre, Estonian player Ilmar Raud (1913-
1941), Raymond Weinstein, Bobby Fischer, Tony Miles. Some sources say that
chess has nothing to do with mental illness. Players just make the moves the
voices in their heads tell them to.

Molesters
Sometimes chess players are molesters. In 2001, John Smith, was arrested for
molesting boys as a chess coach in Masssillon, Ohio. In September 2005, chess
master Robert Snyder was arrested in Fort Collins, Colorado on charges of
molesting three chess students of his. Two boys were age 13 and one boy was
age 12. He later escaped and was featured on America’s Most Wanted in
2009. He was later captured in Belize after someone recognized him from the TV
show. He was released from jail in 2008 and was supposed to register as a sex
offender, but he never did. He was featured on America’s Most Wanted in
November, 2009. A girl had recognized him as a chess teacher in her school in
Belize and notified the authorities. US Marshals tracked him down in Belize and
arrested him. In April 2014, chess master David Harris was arrested in
Providence, Rhode Island, and charged with indecent solicitation and third-degree
sexual assault. More investigation continues since Harris was involved with chess
in schools. Police were still looking at his contact with other children that he
taught chess to. In May 2015, Miro Nowak, a chess coach in Sydney,
Australia, was arrested for indecently assaulting one of his primary school
students. (source: Sydney Morning Herald, June 13, 2015)

Murdered
Sometimes chess players are killed or murdered. Paolo Boi was poisoned by
jealous rivals. Nicholas Rossolimo was robbed and pushed down a flight of stairs
and died at his chess studio. Abe Turner was stabbed 9 times at the Chess Review
offices and died. Simon Webb (1949-2005), British International Master, was
stabbed to death in the family kitchen by his son during an argument. In 2000,
Laurence Douglas of Puoghkeepsie, New York, stabbed Craig Williams to death
over a chess game. Williams had just beaten Douglas in a chess game that had a
$5 wager. Williams took a $5 bill from Douglas after the game. Douglas then
pulled out a knife and stabbed Williams 16 times. In 1264, a court case was
opened when a man stabbed a woman to death with his sword after a quarrel
over a chess game. 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 that he killed his opponent with an axe. After the
incident, the Soviets banned chess at their Antarctic stations. (sources: The
Antarctic Legal Regime, p. 67; Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica; The Crystal
Desert: Summers in Antarctica) In 1993, a person was shot and killed while
playing chess with a friend outdoors in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the first
recorded killing of a chess player by sniper fire. On November 13, 1994,
grandmaster Igor Platonov (1934-1994) returned home to his apartment in Kiev
after a chess tournament, when two thieves ambushed him and murdered
him. The killers were never caught. In 1995, International Master Gilles Andruet,
a former French champion, was murdered in Paris over gambling debts. He was
found dead in a plastic bag. In 2015, Steve Dillard, “Mr. Kentucky chess” was
beaten and stabbed to death by one of his former foster kids. Dillard directed
over 3,000 chess tournaments, more than any other American, and was given a
life achievement award by the US Chess Federation for his efforts.(source: The
Courier-Journal, March 15, 2015). In 1897, William Wilson, age 55, a prominent
member of the Franklin Chess Club in Philadelphia and bookseller, was robbed
and killed in his store. An internationally ranked chess player, Thomas Elberling,
age 11, was killed by his father in a murder-suicide. (source: MailOnline, Sep 9,
2014)
Murderers
Chess players can be murders. IM Raymond Weinstein killed an 83-year old man
in a nursing home with a razor. Claude Bloodgood (1924-2001) stabbed his
mother to death. In 1960, a U.S. sailor was arrested in New York for murder after
he got in a fight with a spectator who criticized his chess game. The sailor struck
the spectator with a broken beer bottle, which struck his jugular vein. The sailor
was eventually acquitted of murder and was charged with accidental death
instead. In January 1979, Patrick McKenna, a prisoner in Nevada, strangled his Las
Vegas cellmate, Jack J. Nobles, after an argument over a chess game. McKenna
has been on death row in Nevada since 1979. From 1992 to 2006, Alexander
Pichushkin (1974- ) went on a killing spree in Moscow. Pichushkin claimed he
killed 63 people (48 confirmed) and his aim was to kill 64 people, one for each
square on a chessboard. In 1994, Martin Wirth of Fort Collins, Colorado, shot to
death Vernie Cox after the two argued over a chess game. Cox died of two
gunshot wounds to the chest. Witnesses said that Wirth had lost a chess game
with Cox, knocked over the chess board and some furniture, then began to argue
with his opponent. Wirth went across the street to his home and returned with a
gun and shot Cox to death. In 2003, Simon Andrews of Falls Township,
Pennsylvania, stabbed to death Jerry Kowalski during a chess game. Authorities
said that Andrews was disturbed by Kowalski’s constant talking during their chess
games. Andrews then pulled a knife from under a sofa-bed mattress and stabbed
Kowalski in the neck. Andrews was sentenced from 15 to 30 years in state
prison. In October 2008, David Christian of Iowa City got in a fight with Michael
Steward while playing a game of chess at the rooming house where they both
lived. He was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for involuntary
manslaughter. Christian choked Steward to death. In February 2009, a man killed
a friend with a sword after a chess game in Alameda, California. An argument
broke out during their game, and the two started wrestling. Joseph Groom
retreated to his bedroom and returned with a sword, which he used to stab
Kelly Kjersem once. Kjersem later died. In October 2009, David Christian of Iowa
City, Iowa, was arrested after killing his neighbor, Michael Steward, after the two
got into a fight over a chess game. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In
January 2014, an Italian man, Saverio Bellante, who had been living in a rented
home in Dublin, killed his landlord over a game of chess. He was arrested for the
killing after stabbing his landlord, Tom O’Gorman, multiple times. O’Gorman was
a minister. Bellante told police that they were fighting over a chess
game. Bellante was then asked by O’Gormon to leave the house following an
argument over a chess move. Instead, Bellante found a kitchen knife and
stabbed O’Gormon, then beat him over the head with a dumbbell. Bellante was
also accused of eating the heart of his victim. In 2013, a Chinese player murdered
his best friend and then killed himself so they could play chess in the afterlife. In
September 2014, an internationally ranked chess player, Thomas Elberling, age
11, was shot and killed by his father in a murder-suicide in New Jersey. Thomas
was ranked #5 in the USA for his age group.

Nervous System
Woman Grandmaster Natalia Pogonina said that “playing chess every day
professionally wrecks one’s nervous system.”

Paranoid schizophrenia
Some chess players exhibit the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. They
believe they are being watched by someone and that perhaps that someone is
trying to influence the outcome of the match. Akiba Rubenstein suffered from
paranoid schizophrenia, as well as an abnormal fear of people and society. In
1978, Anatoly Karpov had a parapsychologist in the audience against his world
championship match with Korchnoi in Baguio, Philippines. Korchnoi claimed the
parapsychologist was distorting his brain waves. Korchnoi then hired his own
psychics to counteract the negative vibrations. During the match, Korchnoi also
accused Karpov of cheating by receiving different flavors of yogurt during the
game. The different flavors were part of coded instructions that Karpov
followed. The arbiter treated the accusation seriously and imposed a fixed time
of sending yogurt to Karpov. The flavors had to be in writing from Karpov to the
arbiter.

Poverty
Many chess players live and die in poverty. Those who died in poverty include
Carl Schlechter (1874-1918), leading Austrian player, 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. Louis-
Charles Mahe de La Bourdonnais (1795-1840), strongest player of the
19th century, died of a stroke. He died penniless in London, having been forced to
sell all his possessions to satisfy creditors. Howard Staunton died in
poverty. William Steinitz died penniless in an insane
asylum. Lionel Kieseritzky (1806-1853) died penniless at a charity hospital for the
insane in Paris. He was only 47. He was buried in a pauper’s grave. Only one
person came to his funeral, a waiter at the Café de la Régence. Emanuel Lasker,
world chess champion for 27 years, died penniless in New York. Frederick Yates
died in debt. Others who died in poverty include Henry Bird, Harry Nelson
Pillsbury, James Mason, Richard Reti, and Akiba Rubinstein. Fred Waitzkin wrote
in Searching for Bobby Fischer, “Professional players in the United States are
bitter about their poverty and lack of recognition.”

Robbed
Chess players have been robbed. In 1622, Gioacchino Greco was robbed of all his
money (5,000 crowns) that he won in Paris from playing chess while on his way to
London. In 1978, grandmaster William Lombardy was attacked and robbed in
New York City by a mugger who had a knife. Tendons in two fingers were severed
and he underwent a long operation to repair the severed tendons. In 1990,
grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov and his wife had their luggage stolen from the
trunk of a car while he was having dinner at a restaurant in New York City. The
next day, he was attacked by a gang and robbed of his money, airline tickets, and
10 years of chess analysis. . In the 1940s, a tournament director of the U.S.
Championship had his car stolen in Manhattan during the tournament. The car
was recovered a day later. In the 1990s, grandmaster Maurice Ashley was robbed
and mugged twice in New York. In 1992, Grandmaster Artur Yusupov returned to
his Moscow apartment from a chess tournament to discover several burglars
robbing his apartment. A struggle broke out and Yusupovwas shot in the
stomach. He was rushed to the hospital and was in critical condition, but
survived. At the 1994 chess Olympiad in Moscow, the Macedonian team captain
was beaten into unconsciousness and robbed twice. The first time, he was
robbed of $7,000 inside a bank that was across the street from the playing
center. A U.S. player was mugged, and robbers threatened his life if he did not
come back the next day with more money. Other chess players reported that
thugs pounded on their hotel doors in the middle of the night and threatened
them. In January 2003, grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, age 79, was attacked in his
sleep and beaten up by masked burglars in his Belgrade home. The armed
robbers broke into his home at 3 am, beat and tied him up, the stole his money
and jewelry of his late wife. They also took his chess trophies. Gligoric suffered a
black eye. In July 2005, Canadian grandmaster Pascal Charbonneau and his chess-
playing friends were robbed and mugged at gunpoint at the World Open in
Philadelphia. In 2006, Anatoly Karpov was working on a manuscript for a new
chess book when it was stolen in Brussels. One thief distracted him while the
other attacked from behind and stole his briefcase with the 300 page
manuscript. On January 5, 2007, grandmaster Farhad Tahirov, age 19, was kicked
and punched by a gang of eight thugs during the 82nd Hastings International Chess
Congress. He was robbed of a thousand British pounds. It happened as we
walked along Harold Road in Hastings at about 8 pm. On February 18,
2007, Teimour Radjabov had all of his possessions stolen from a hotel room while
playing in the Morelia-Linares chess tournament in Mexico. The burglary
occurred in Patzcuaro, Mexico only a few days before the start of the
tournament. Radjabov and his father left for a quick dinner and returned to their
room within 30 minutes. All of their valuable items were stolen. They reported
the crime, but got neither help from the local authorities, nor even a police
investigation. In 2007, the Rochester Chess Center was the official vendor at the
World Open in Philadelphia. They had 21 expensive chess clocks stolen during the
event. It was later discovered that some of the chess clocks were being used to
pay off gambling debts from backgammon and poker at the tournament. In
December 2007, the tournament director’s laptop was stolen at the 34th Eastern
Open in Washington, D.C. It had occurred shortly after round 3, when the 6-
month-old laptop was stolen from the director’s room. Generous chess players at
the event contributed $600, which was matched by a generous donor to pay for a
new laptop. In 2008, grandmaster Leonid Timoshenko had a precious diamond he
was carrying stolen. The diamond was part of a trophy won by the Ukrainian
National Chess Team in the 2008 Chess Olympiad. The diamond and trophy was
in his checked bag on the airplane, but when he landed, his bag was open, the
trophy was broken and the diamond was stolen. He was forced to check the cup
into baggage at Frankfurt on his flight to Kiev. On the previous flight from
Dresden, he was allowed to take the trophy onboard as a carry-on piece. In
October 2008, an antique chess set from the 17thcentury was stolen after thieves
broke into a Brisbane home. The 32-piece chess set was a hand carved ivory
chess set made up of eight individual sections of ivory. In 2009, a chess player
who had just finished a tournament at the Marshall Chess Club was mugged after
leaving the club. In 2009, thieves stole bags from chess players during the World
Open in Philadelphia. The players would set their bags down in an area with
computers attached to the Internet for hotel guests to use. Thieves would then
make off with the bags. In April 2010, five chess pieces were stolen from the
Christchurch Cathedral Square. The large public chess set was a popular
attraction in Cathedral Square. The pieces were stolen over the Easter
weekend. On October 4, 2011, grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk and his wife were
robbed at gunpoint in Sao Paulo, Brazil as they were sitting in the taxi form their
hotel to the airport. Two men with guns took two suitcases and a handbag and
ran. They missed his laptop computer by his feet and his passport in the inside
pocket of his jacket, but got his wife’s passport which was in the
handbag. Ivanchuk said that the most valuable item stolen was his chess set,
which he had for many years. On June 15, 2014, several ax-wielding thugs went
on a rampage in a Chinese chess hall in Hotan City, Xingiang. Four people were
injured during that attack. In 1994, the captain of the Macedonian chess team
was robbed of $7,000 inside a bank in Moscow during the 1994 Moscow Chess
Olympiad. He was later robbed again and beaten into unconsciousness. An
American chess player was mugged during the event and the robbers threatened
his life if he did not come back the next day with more money.

Scam
Some chess players are scam artists. In 2008, a man was arrested by Boston
police on a warrant of receiving stolen property. He was supposed to have been
running an extracurricular chess program for elementary school students,
charging $63.50 per student, but it was a scam. In 2007, $73,000 was donated on
behalf of a chess program and team at an elementary school in Washington, DC. It
turned out that the school business manager who handled the funds was a thief
and scam artist. The business manager ripped off most of the $73,000 that was
supposed to go to the chess program. The person used the school’s ATM card
more than 100 times to steal from the chess fund. When the pillage was
discovered, the school security and the police were immediately notified, but the
authorities did little or nothing until an anonymous tipster told the D.C.
government’s inspector general about the missing money. Before the plundering,
the money was used to fund 12 Washington D.C. kids to Nashville to take part in
the national scholastic chess tournament. The children of the chess team never
competed in another tournament after the theft of their funds. In December
1906, Nicolai Jasnogrodsky (1859-1914), a chess master, was arrested for
scamming and swindling 10 citizens of Bay City, Michigan out of $10,000 to marry
a rich rabbi’s daughter. (source: New York Times, Dec 3, 1906, p. 6)

Society
Many chess players are not well-adjusted members of society. They have the
inability to relate to society in a constructive manner. The vast majority of
professional chess players do not make a lot of money. Most people would not
want their livelihood dependent upon chess. Unless you are Magnus Carlsen,
imagine the stress you feel if winning a chess tournament was necessary for your
livelihood.

Stress
Chess brings on a lot of stress, especially when playing in a high-stakes
tournament game. It is the only game where your heart can be beating like you
are running sprints when you are sitting down and barely moving a
muscle. Chess can lead to an immense amount of stress, which can be bad for a
competitor’s physical health as well. Stress has killed many chess players that
have had heart attacks or strokes while playing chess. Chess is different at the
professional level, where success and failure are won and lost by the finest
margins and where winning can mean funding and a future, and losing can mean
poverty and unemployment. Elite completion for chess players can be stressful
because the outcome is so important to the competitors. (source: “How the
stress of playing chess can be fatal” by Andrew Lane, The Conversation, Aug 20,
2014)

Suicide
Chess could lead to suicide. It may have the highest suicide rate of any sport. In
1905, Pillsbury attempted suicide by trying to jump out of his 4th floor hospital
window in Philadelphia (he had syphilis). This was reported in the Washington
Times, which went on to comment, “The tremendous mental strain which chess
masters undergo in the great tournaments, aided and abetted by excessive use of
stimulants to keep them keyed to the proper pitch, is too much for the human
brain, no matter how abnormally brilliant.” Chess players who committed suicide
include Rudolf Swiderski (took poison, then shot himself in the head), William
Henry Russ (shot himself, then jumped into a river to drown himself), Curt von
Bardeleben (threw himself out of the window of his boarding home), Karen
Grigorian (jumped to his death from the highest bridge in Yerevan), George
Mackenzie (took an overdose of morphine), Hans Minckwitz (threw himself under
a train), Lembit Oll (jumped to his death from his 5th story apartment), and Alvis
Vitolins (jumped onto the frozen ice of a river from a railway bridge). On July 26,
2006, Jessie Gilbert (1987-2006), 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. She may have
committed suicide. She was only 19. In April 2015, a 10 year old New Jersey boy
jumped to his death over a chess game loss. (source: New York Daily News, April
2, 2015)
Travel hazards
On December 15, 1906, Frank Marshall was traveling by train in Louisiana, giving
simultaneous chess exhibitions. On his way to another chess event, his train
collided with a freight train in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. Marshall survived, badly
bruised, with cuts on his hand and a sprained ankle. In 1928, chess master
Norman Whitaker was on his way to The Hague to play in the Amateur World
Chess Championship. He was traveling by train when the train wrecked and
derailed, killing 9 people and severely injuring his wife. In November 1977,
Viktor Korchnoi was injured in a car wreck in Switzerland and had to postpone his
semi-final match against Boris Spassky. Korchnoi suffered a broken hand and
other minor injuries when his vehicle collided with a Swiss Army truck. In
February 2007, former FIDE president Florencio Campomanes suffered injuries
from a car accident, and had to be put in intensive care. He was on his way to the
airport after attending the FIDE Presidential Board in Antalya, Turkey. In
November 2008, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was in a car accident in
Moscow. He suffered minor injuries and was taken to the hospital. He was on his
way to the airport to attend the opening ceremonies of the Dresden Chess
Olympiad. In October 2011, Grandmaster Eduardo Iturrizaga, the top player
in Venzuela, got in a car wreck on his way to the airport to participate in a chess
tournament in Barcelona. He was unable to make it to the tournament.

Violence
Around 1120, King Henry I (1068-1135) of England and King Louis VI (1081-1137)
of France got into a fistfight over a game of chess in Paris. One story says that
Louis threw the chessboard at Henry; another says that Henry hit Louis over the
head with the chessboard. Courtiers stepped in to stop the fight. This episode
supposedly was the start of events that kept England and France at war for almost
12 years. In 1251, the first known court case involving chess and violence
appeared. It dealt with a chess player who stabbed his opponent to death. A
quarrel arose between two players of Essex over a chess match. One of the
players who lost was so angered that he stabbed his opponent in the stomach
with a knife, from which he died. In 1950, a chess player in Vancouver, British
Columbia, was arrested for assault after cutting his chess opponent in the arm
with a knife after he lost a chess game. In 1957, two Poles,
Alexander Piotrowski and Kazimierz Osiecki, were arrested for assault after they
both got into a fight over a chess game, resulting in both players going to the
hospital. In 1992, Robert Bryan of England shot Matthew Hay over a chess
game. Bryan had ‘had enough’ after losing to Hay and was jailed for 10 years
after admitting attempting to murder Mr. Hay by shooting him in the neck with a
shotgun. In March 1997, two teenagers got into a fight over a school chess
game. 13-year-old John Slack was in critical condition. His 15-year-old opponent
was arrested on an assault charge. In January 2008, Zachary Lucov was playing
chess with Dennis Klien in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, when a scuffle broke
out. Luco pulled out a gun and Klein was shot in the elbow. Lucov was arrested
for aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. In 1954, the Argentine Chess
Federation called off its national chess tournament after a chess player punched
one of the tournament directors. In 1966, Mikhail Tal (1936-1992) was beaten up
and hit on the head with a beer bottle during the 1966 Olympiad in Havana. He
was drinking and had been flirting with a woman in a bar when her jealous
boyfriend got in a fight with Tal. He missed the first five rounds of the Havana
Chess Olympiad because of his injuries. In one of the US Opens of the early
1970s, a chess player had just lost his game and, by himself, set up the pieces to
analyze his game. A player sitting next to him told him to leave the playing area,
that this was not a skittles room. Ignoring the player, the other person quietly
replayed his lost game. The player again told him to leave. The lone kibitzer
replied, “Who died and made you king?” The player then swept all the pieces off
the other guy’s board with his hand. The kibitzer responded with a right hook
that knocked the player off his seat. A fight then started, which had to be broken
up by the tournament director. In 1971, Rona Petrosian, wife
of Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984), after her husband lost his Candidate’s match
against Bobby Fischer, walked up to Petrosian’s second, Alexei Suetin and slapped
him hard in the face for failing to give accurate analysis during the adjourned
games of the match. In 1981, future grandmaster John Fedorowicz and
grandmaster András Adorján got into a fistfight at the Edward Lasker Memorial on
New York. Fedorowicz was upset that Adorján beat him when Adorján was
drawing all his earlier games. Most of the blows landed not on each other, but on
the tournament director, Eric Schiller, who was trying to break up the fight. In
1989, during the French championship, IM Gilles Andruet and IM Jean-
Luc Seret got into a violent fight over an argument whether Andruet resigned
before Seret checkmated him. After the fight, Andruet needed 8 stitches and had
to withdraw from the tournament, despite the fact that he was in the lead after
10 of 14 rounds. During the early 1990s, Rustam Kamsky, a former boxer and
father of Gata Kamsky, would often go to chess tournaments with his son and
threaten anyone who he perceived was disturbing the concentration of his
son. In 1994, Rustamthreatened to kill grandmaster Nigel Short at a restaurant
during a Kamsky-Short chess match. In 2002, two players got into a fight at the
World Open in Philadelphia when one of the players threw a basketball at
another player between rounds. On April 15, 2005, Garry Kasparov was hit over
the head with a wooden chessboard while signing autographs. It was a politically
motivated attack. The attacker said, “I admired you as a chess player, but you
gave that up for politics.” In 2005, junior champion David Howell of England (now
a grandmaster) punched the organizer of the European Union Chess
Championship when it turned out that Howell would not win a prize. It turned
out that titled players were not eligible for junior prizes. In 2006, during the Turin
chess Olympiad, UK grandmaster Daniel Gormally punched Armenian
grandmaster Levon Aronian to the ground at a nightclub. The two got in a jealous
dispute over 19-year-old chess playing beauty Arianne Caoili. Caoili’s energetic
dancing with Aronian provoked Gormally to fight. In January 2009, a heated
argument erupted at a Dubai chess tournament between an Iranian chess master
and his Asian opponent. The two then got into a fight after the Asian opponent
said he was good in karate. In January 2009, a Bridgeport, Connecticut man was
stabbed with a plastic snow shovel after a dispute arose over a chess game. On
August 11, 2011, two people were stabbed at a Chuy’s Restaurant in Phoenix after
police say a person got mad over a game of chess. Officers at the scene said two
people were playing a game, but when one person won the game the other
person, a sore loser, got mad and stabbed the winner twice. The victim’s friend
jumped in and tried to help, but he was also stabbed. (source: ABC 15.com, Aug
12, 2011)

Cheating
Many chess players become cheaters or act unethically. Here are a few incidents
of chess cheaters.
There was a cheating scandal at the 5th American Chess Congress. In January
1880, at the 5th American Chess Congress in New York, Preston Ware, a wealthy
banker of Boston, testified to the tournament committee that his last-round
opponent, James Grundy of England, offered him $20 if he agreed to play for a
draw in their game that had been adjourned. A draw would give Grundy, who
needed the money, at least 2nd place prize money. Ware agreed, but complained
that Grundy then reneged on the deal and went on to win the game in 64 moves,
and tied for 1st place (with George Mackenzie). 1st place was $500 and 2nd place
was $300. Grundy lost the playoff match with Mackenzie to take 2nd. When
Grundy admitted his guilt, he was forbidden from ever again taking part in an
American tournament. Grundy played in other tournaments, but under false
names. Ware was suspended for one year from playing chess. Preston Ware
didn’t need the money, but agreed to the shady deal because he wanted his
friend, Captain George Mackenzie, to take first place.
In 1967, Grandmaster Milan Matulovic of Yugoslavia was playing against Istvan
Bilek in the 9th round at the Interzonal in Sousse, Tunisia. Matulovic moved his
bishop, pressed his chess clock, and soon realized he had made a mistake. So he
took back his bishop move, moved his king, and only then said “J’Adoube” (“I
adjust” – which is said before adjusting pieces on a square). Matulovic then
wrote his move on his score sheet as if nothing happened. Bilek went to the
tournament director to protest, but Matulovic replied, “But I said
j’adoube!” There was an argument, but the tournament director, having only
Bilek’s word against Matulovic, refused to require Matulovic to make his original
move with his bishop, as the rules of chess state. Bilek protested three times to
the tournament director, but was ignored. The game ended in a draw. After this
incident, even the Yugoslav players shunned Matulovic. Ever since this incident,
Matulovic has been referred as “J’adoubovic.”
In 1968, at a tournament in Athens, two Greek players were trying to qualify for
International Master at the event. During the opening ceremony, invited players
to the tournament were asked to draw or lose their games to the Greek
players. In return, they would be paid a sum of money or points would be thrown
in their direction by other accommodating players. Some players cooperated,
others refused. The two Greek players did get their International Master title.
There have been cheaters in correspondence chess (more than just using a chess
computer for your moves). In 1985, Nick Down, a former British Junior
Correspondence champion, entered the British Ladies Correspondence
Championship as Miss Leigh Strange and won the event (and 15 British pounds
along with the Lady Herbert trophy). He then signed up to represent Britain in
the Ladies Postal Olympiad. He was later caught when one of his friends mouthed
off about it and Nick confessed. The whole thing had been cooked up by Nick
Down and a group of undergraduates at Cambridge, where Nick was a
student. Nick returned the Lady Herbert trophy and was banned from the British
Correspondence Chess Association for two years.
In 1993, an unrated black player named John von Neumann was playing at the
World Open in Philadelphia and scored 4/5 out of 9 in the Open section, including
a draw with a grandmaster (Helgi Olafsson) and a win against a 2350-rated
player. He wore a large pair of headphones and seemed to have something in his
pocket that buzzed at critical points of the game. When quizzed by Bill Goichberg,
the tournament director, von Neumann was unable to demonstrate very much
knowledge about simple chess concepts, and was disqualified and received no
prize money. It appeared he was using a strong chess computer to cheat and play
his games. It was alleged that he was entering moves on a communication device
whose signal was being sent up to a hotel room where an accomplice was
operating a chess computer. Von Neumann has never been seen or heard from
since. John von Neumann is the same name as the noted mathematician and
pioneer in artificial intelligence.
In 1994, at Linares, Spain, Garry Kasparov made a move against Judit Polgar,
momentarily letting go of the piece (in violation of the “touch move” rule), then
made a move to another square once he realized his original move was a
blunder. Kasparov went on to win the game. Judit Polgar waited a day before
issuing her complaint instead of during the game. A videotape of the incident
proved that Kasparov did let go of the piece.
In 2001, Grandmaster Alexandru Crisan was accused of faking his Elo rating of
2635 (number 33 in the world) by fixing chess matches for his own benefit and
falsifying chess tournament results.
In 2006, the Indian player Umakant Sharma was caught communicating with
accomplices through a Bluetooth device hidden inside his cap. In 2008, the Dubai
Chess and Culture Club banned an Iranian player who was receiving moves via
text message.
In 2013, Loris Cereda, a former mayor of a town in Italy, was banned from all
chess tournaments sponsored by the Italian Chess Federation for cheating. He
was accused of using a tiny camera in his glasses and using an earpiece while
playing his chess games. He was alleged to have been receiving advice from
someone with access to a computer.
In 2015, Georgian chess champion Gaioz Nigalidze was expelled and banned from
the Dubai Open Chess Tournament after being caught with an iPod Touch behind
a toilet bowl with a chess app open on the device that matched the chess position
he was playing with his opponent. (source: “The Return of the Cheat,” by Simon
Parkin, The New Yorker, April 17, 2015)
For more dangers in chess,
see http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/Dangers.htm

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