Chess Anecdotes

by Bill Wall

The oldest chess anecdote found

in old literature is that of
Charlemagne, around 765,
playing a chess match with the
Prince of Bavaria. Charlemagne
became so enraged at the latter
for having repeatedly beaten
him, that he picked up the chess
board and hit the prince so hard
with the board that it killed the
prince. (source: The Chess
Player's Chronicle, Nov 1881, p. Bill Wall
555)

In the 19th century, Cardinal

Constantino Patrizi (1798-1876)
challenged five other nobles to a
pistol duel because they denied Those who say they understand
him membership in the Noble chess, understand nothing. —
Chess Circle of Rome. (Chess Robert Huebner
Review, February 1951, p. 50)

In 1857, the $300 first place

money for the first American
Chess Congress played in New
York was refused by Paul
Morphy, the winner. Instead, he
accepted a silver pitcher, four
goblets, and a silver tray.
Morphy defeated Charles
Stanley in a match, giving odds
of pawn and move. Morphy
gave the $100 prize money to
Stanley's wife and children. As a
mark of gratitude, she named
her next daughter Pauline.

In 1862, chess player Armand

Edward Blackmar (1826-1888),
of the Blackmar Gambit and
Blackmar-Diemer fame, was
arrested by Union General Ben
Butler (1818-1893) and
imprisoned by Union soldiers in
New Orleans for publishing
"seditious" (Confederate) music,
such as the Bonnie Blue Flag
(Band of Brothers) and the Dixie
War Song.

In January 1862, the St.

Petersburg Chess Club was
founded. In June 1862, the
Russian police disbanded the St.
Petersburg Chess Club. It was
considered a front for a literary
and political group of agitators.
The club wasn't re-established
until the late 1890s when
Mikhail Chigorin brought it
back to life.

In 1864, George Mackenzie

(1837-1891), a former Captain
in the Union army, was arrested
and imprisoned for desertion
from the Union army. He was
released in May, 1865, and
moved to New York and started
playing chess. By 1867, he was
U.S. chess champion.

Joseph Henry Blackburne

(1841-1924) was one of the
strongest players of his time and
he was also a heavy drinker. In
the 19th century, players often
drank even during the course of
a tournament or match game. In
one of Blackburne's many
simuls, perhaps in Manchester,
he grabbed his opponent's drink
when he wasn't looking, and
quickly downed it. After the
game, which Blackburne won,
he commented "My opponent
left a glass of whisky en prise,
and I took it en passant."
Blackburne once claimed that
drinking whisky cleared his
brain and improved his chess
play.

Wilhelm Steinitz and Henry

Blackburne would sometimes
get in a scuffle. Steinitz wrote of
Blackburne "...he struck with his
full fist into my eye, which he
blackened and might have
knocked out. And though he is a
powerful man of very nearly
twice my size, who might have
killed me with a few such
strokes, I am proud to say that I
had the courage of attempting to
spit into his face, and only wish
I had succeeded."

In 1878, Johannes Zukertort

(1842-1888) won an
international chess tournament
in Paris. The first place prize,
given to him by the President of
France, was a Sevres vase,
worth over 5,000 francs
(perhaps about $10,000 in
today's currency). A few days
later, Zukertort took the vase to
a pawn shop and sold it for
about 2,500 francs.

In 1880, going into the last

round of the 5th American
Chess Congress in New York,
the leading scores were: James
Grundy 12.5, Preston Ware
12.5, Charles Moehle 12.5 and
George Henry Mackenzie 12.5.
So, the distribution of $1,000
prize money and a gold medal
depended on the final games.
Mackenzie won his game and
scored 13.5. Then Moehle drew
and scored 13 points. But
Grundy's game with Ware
lingered on. At one time it
appeared that Ware had a certain
win and the game was
adjourned. Unaccountably to the
onlookers, when the players
resumed in the evening, Ware
played what are described as
'some apparently purposeless
moves', and Grundy scored a
lucky point after 64 moves to tie
Captain Mackenzie for first and
second prizes. A two-game play
off was arranged between
Mackenzie and Grundy. But
before it began, Ware made a
written complaint to the
congress committee. Ware
wrote, "As I was walking down
the Bowery with Mr Grundy, on
Sunday 25 January, he remarked
that he was poor and really
needed the second prize." Ware
alleged that Grundy had offered
him $20 to play for a draw. He
admitted that he had fallen in
with the plan and that, even with
a won game, he merely — in his
own words — "moved back and
forward as agreed. Grundy was
making desperate efforts to win,
and finally did so, perpetrating
an infamous fraud on me." The
committee couldn't do anything
about the unsupported
allegations, and conceded to
Grundy the benefit of a technical
doubt. Grundy lost the play-off
2-0 and took the $300 second
prize.

In 1886, after the first Steinitz-

Zukertort game, Johannes
Zukertort (1842-1888)
complained of want of chess
practice. "Why didn't you
practice in London?" he was
asked. "I couldn't," fired back
Zukertort: "Blackburne is
always sick and Mason is
always drunk." (source:
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 14,
1886)

In July 1887, Frederick Viewig,

manager of the Eden Musee in
New York, was arrested for
having violated the Sunday law
by exhibiting wax figures,
permitting music to be played,
and also by allowing Ajeeb, the
chess automaton, to play a game
of chess. He responded, "I
consider it absurd to contend
that a playing a game of chess or
looking at was figures was a
violation of the Sunday law." Mr
Viewig had to pay $100 for
bail.

In 1894, world champion

Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)
had gastric fever and a broken
blood vessel while in England
and almost died. His medical
doctor brother, Dr. Berthold
Lasker (1860-1928), traveled
from Berlin to England and
saved his life.

In 1895, Beniamino Vergani

(1863-1927) was invited to play
in the Hastings International
tournament of 1895. He was a
chess master from Italy. He
ended up in last place, scoring
only 3 points (2 wins and 2
draws) out of 21. He was so
disgusted with his game that he
never played in a masters' chess
tournament again. He was given
2 British pounds for his efforts.

In 1896, U.S. chess champion

Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-
1906) resigned from the
Manhattan Chess Club (he had
earlier won the Manhattan CC
championship) because someone
stole his umbrella and that
umbrellas were not safe in the
club house. (source: Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, July 3, 1896)

Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900)

died in the Manhattan State
Hospital (Ward Island) and is
buried in Brooklyn's Evergreen
Cemetery, Bethel Slope Section,
Lot 5896. His birth date on his
grave is wrong. He was born on
May 17, 1836. His tombstone
says that he was born on May
14, 1837. The inscriptions on his
tombstone are written in
German, but his first name on
the tombstone reads William
instead of Wilhelm. The top of
his tombstone is a chessboard.

In 1900, Frank Marshall (1877-

1944) sat down to play a game
against the British player Amos
Burn (1848-1925) at the 1900
Paris International. Burn was a
smoker and loved to smoke his
pipe while he studied the chess
board. After two moves, Burn
began hunting through his
pockets for his pipe and tobacco.
By move 4, Burn had his pipe
out and was looking for a pipe
cleaner. By move 8, he was
filling up his pipe with tobacco.
Marshall made a few fast
moves, and by move 12, Burn
was looking for his matches. On
move 14, he struck his first
match, but was concentrating on
the position. The match burned
down and burned Burn's fingers
and went out. On move 15, Burn
found another match and lit it.
On move 16, he finally lit his
pipe, but it was too late. Burn
was checkmated on move 18
and his pipe went out. He never
did get to smoke his pipe.

In 1901 David Janowski (1868-

1927) won an international
tournament at Monte Carlo and
lost all his first place money in
the casino the same evening the
tournament ended. The casino
management had to buy his
ticket home. In another event he
handed his money to a friend
and made him promise not to
return it until after the chess
tournament. However, the lure
of gambling proved too strong
and he begged for the return of
his money. His friend refused.
Janowski was so infuriated that
he sued his friend.

In Vienna 1903, Jacques Mieses

(1865-1954) had been going
strong in The Vienna Gambit
tournament. In the 13th round he
was to play Isidor Gunsberg
(1854-1930). Not that Gunsberg
wasn't a fine player, but the
wide-open games resulting from
gambits were not his forte, and
in addition he seemed to be
completely out of form. Out of
the previous twelve games,
Gunsberg had lost 10 and drew
2, and was in last place. Mieses
had already chalked up the point
mentally. But, as so often
happens, the tail-ender of the
tournament had one good game
in him. He let loose with
everything he had, and Mieses
had to resign after 50 moves.
Mieses commented bitterly, "It
is bad enough to get run over,
but to get run over by a corpse is
horrible!" This was Gunsberg's
only win. He lost 15, drew 2,
and won 1 in the tournament.
(source: Chernev, The Bright
Side of Chess, pp. 13-14)

In 1904, the great Cambridge

Springs International Chess
Congress was held in
Cambridge Springs,
Pennsylvania. It was sponsored
by William Rider, who owned
the Hotel Rider in town. Most of
the support came from Rider and
the directors of the Erie Railroad
Company. It was reported that
the players would attend a
reception with President
Theodore Roosevelt at the
White House, but the reception
was cancelled. At the end of the
tournament, the organizers tried
to recoup some of their expenses
by selling chess boards and sets
for $15. Mikhail Chigorin was
stunned at these high prices,
complaining that the sets were
cheat, not worth more than
$2.50, and the poorly made
chess boards were only worth 10
to 15 cents. The sets and boards
sold anyway. (source: Andy
Soltis, Chess Life, Dec 1995)

In 1907, Akiba Rubinstein

(1880-1961) was playing in a
chess tournament in Carlsbad
and had a one point lead with
one game to go he was playing
against Heinrich Wolf (1875-
1942). Rubinstein just needed a
draw to win the tournament.
After 22 moves into the game,
Wolf offered Rubinstein the
draw. Rubinstein declined and
played on till he had a superior
position (he could have forced
mate) then offered Wolf a draw
on move 31, which Wolf gladly
accepted. After the game
Rubinstein was asked why he
declined Wolf's draw offer and
then played on till he was
winning then offered a draw to
Wolf. Rubinstein replied, "With
Wolf I draw when I want to, not
when he wants to!" Sixteen
years later, at Carlsbad 1923,
Wolf again offered a draw in his
game with Rubinstein. Again,
Rubinstein turned down the
draw, but this time Rubinstein
made a mistake and resigned
four moves later after he made a
blunder after the draw offer.
In 1911, the 15 chess masters
(17 masters were invited) who
participated in the San
Sebastian, Spain tournament
were reimbursed for their
travels. It was the first time that
chess players in a major
tournament were reimbursed for
their travels. The event was won
by Jose Capablanca, age 22, in
his first international
tournament. The event was
organized by Jacques Mieses,
who insisted that all of the
expenses of the masters were
paid. Atkins and Lasker were
invited, all expenses paid, but
they refused to play in the event.
The tournament was played in
the Gran Casino. Initially, Ossip
Bernstein objected to the
participation of the unknown
Capablanca who was probably
not master class, but Bernstein
was silenced when Capablanca
defeated him in the first round.

In 1911 at Carlsbad,
Nimzowitsch spent 20 minutes
before making the first move
against Alekhine (1.e4).
Alekhine got up and bought a
magazine to read. When it was
Alekhine's turn to move after 20
minutes, Alekhine continued to
read his magazine until 20
minutes passed on his clock. He
then made his move (1...e5). The
times on the clock were now
even. The game was a 70 move
draw, but Nimzowitsch was so
outraged by Alekhine waiting
for 20 minutes reading a
magazine before making his
move, that they never were
friends again.

In 1912, Frank Marshall

defeated Stefan Levitsky in a
brilliant game by making an
unexpected queen moves on a
square where it could be
captured by three of Levitsky's
pieces. Frank Marshall wrote
that right after the game, "the
spectators...threw gold pieces on
[his] board at the conclusion of
[his] brilliant win over
Levitsky." Years later,
Marshall's wife, Carrie, denied
this ever happened. She said
there wasn't even a shower of
pennies. Another explanation
was that the players and the
spectators were just paying off
their bets on the game.

In 1913, at a chess tournament

in Havana, Charles Jaffe (1879-
1941) drew his game with Frank
Marshall (1877-1944) in the first
round, and later, lost his next
game to Marshall, blundering
away his queen for a rook and
then promptly resigned. Jose
Capablanca (1888-1942), who
lost to Marshall and Jaffe,
charged that Jaffe intentionally
lost his game to Marshall so that
Marshall would win the
tournament ahead of
Capablanca. It was alleged that
Capablanca influenced
tournament organizers in the
USA and Cuba so that Jaffe
would be unable to be invited or
play in major tournaments after
this, especially tournaments in
which Capablanca was playing.
Jaffe never played again in a
tournament where Capablanca
also participated. In 1916, Jaffe
was involved in a court battle
involving non-inclusion for
publication of some of his chess
analysis. Jaffe brought suit to
recover $750 for work alleged to
have been done in analyzing the
Rice Gambit that was never
published for a book called
"Twenty Years of the Rice
Gambit." Jaffe lost the case,
since the publisher never asked
Jaffe to do any analytical work
for him.

In 1915, Ajeeb, a chess

automaton, was set up at Coney
Island. One player lost to it and
was so angry he took out a gun
and shot at the automaton. It
killed its hidden operator, which
was covered up. In another
incident with Ajeeb, a Westerner
emptied his six-shooter into the
automaton, hitting the operator
in the shoulder. One lady who
lost to the Ajeeb automaton was
so enraged that they stuck a
hatpin into the automaton,
stabbing its operator in the
mouth.

In 1916, during World War I,

Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
and Jacques Mieses (1865-1954)
played a chess match in Berlin
in which the prize was ½
pound of butter. Tarrasch won
the match and the butter with 7
wins, 2 losses, and 4 draws.
(source: Chess Review, Apr
1937, p. 89)

In 1916, Isidor Gunsberg (1854-

1930) sued the Evening News
London newspaper for libel
when a newspaper columnist,
Alfred William Foster, wrote
that Gunsberg's chess column
contained blunders. He won the
suit after the British High Court
accepted a submission that in
chess matters, eight oversights
did not make a blunder.
Gunsberg won 250 British
pounds for damages done to his
reputation.

During the 1917 Russian

Revolution, Aron Nimzowitsch
(1886-1935) was in the Baltic
war zone (Latvia) and escaped
being drafted into the military
service in Russia by
complaining that a fly was on
his head. He then made his way
to Berlin and changed his name
to Arnold as a precaution against
anti-Semitism.

After World War I, Alexander

Fyodorovich Ilyin-Genevsky
(1894-1941) had to learn chess
all over again. He had been an
upcoming Russian chess master,
but the result of World War I
shellshock that wiped out much
of his memory and required him
to learn all over again how the
chess pieces moved (Irving
Chernev said that his memory
loss was due to a bullet that
penetrated a portion of his brain
controlling the memory —
Chernev, Chess Review, April
1933, p. 9). source: Soltis,
Soviet Chess 1917-1991, p. 3

In 1918 Ossip Bernstein (1882-

1962) was arrested in Odessa by
the Cheka and ordered shot by a
firing squad just because he was
a legal advisor to bankers. As
the firing squad lined up, a
superior officer asked to see the
list of prisoners' names.
Discovering the name of Ossip
Bernstein, he asked whether he
was the famous master. Not
satisfied with Bernstein's
affirmative reply, he made him
play a game with him. If
Bernstein lost or drew, he would
be shot. Bernstein won in short
order and was released. He
escaped on a British ship and
settled in Paris. Bernstein's son
was President Eisenhower's
official interpreter because he
spoke almost every European
language.

In June 1919, Alexander

Alekhine joined the Communist
Party and found work in the
commission for confiscating
valuables from the bourgeoisie.
He may have also been working
for the Intelligence Corps of the
White Russian Army in Odessa.
While in Odessa, Alekhine
stayed in a hotel room
previously occupied by a British
Officer of the Intelligence
Service. This British officer left
behind a trunk. During a police
raid, the trunk was found to
contain compromising
documents. He was arrested by
the Cheka (Soviet state security
police), imprisoned in Odesa
and sentenced to death as a spy.
Yakov Vilner (1899-1931), a
Jewish chess master, saved him
by sending a telegram to the
chairman of the Ukrainian
Council of People's
Commissars, who knew of
Alekhine and ordered his
release. (source: CHESS, May
1946)

In 1920, the first All-Russian

Chess Olympiad was held in
Moscow. The competitors
stopped halfway through the
event, went on strike, and
refused to play any more chess
unless they were given more
rations and prize money. Their
demands were finally met.

In the 1920s, Eugene Znosko-

Borovsky (1884-1954)
supposedly published a booklet
called "Capablanca's Errors,"
featuring most of Capablanca's
chess losses. Capablanca
responded that he hoped to write
a book called "Znosko-
Borovsky's Good Moves" but,
he said, "Unfortunately, I didn't
succeed in finding material for
it." (source: Chernev, The
Golden Dozen, 1976, p. 325 and
Soltis, Chess Life, April 1993, p.
20)

In 1921, the press had reported

that Hungarian chess master Leo
Forgacs (1881-1930) had died
during a revolutionary riot in
Hungary. He didn't die until
August 17, 1930. His death was
reported in the "Deutsches
Woshenschach" and the
American Chess Bulletin.

In Vienna 1922, Alexander

Alekhine (1892-1946) was
playing Ernst Gruenfeld (1893-
1962) where Gruenfeld played
the Gruenfeld Defense for the
first time. Alekhine tried to
refute the opening and failed.
Gruenfeld won the game in 54
moves after sealing the strongest
move during the adjournment.
Alekhine, wearing his hat and
overcoat, went to his table to see
what the sealed move was.
When he saw that Gruenfeld had
sealed 54...Qf3, the strongest
move, he resigned by picking up
his king and throwing it across
the tournament room.

Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky

(1911-1992) was a child prodigy
in chess. He made his debut on
radio singing a love song. His
original name was Szmul
Rzeszewski, but nobody could
pronounce it. He was an
accountant by profession.
(Chess Review, October 1951,
p. 288)

In 1924, chess master Curt von

Bardeleben (1861-1924),
destitute and impoverished, may
have committed suicide by
throwing himself out of the
second-floor window of his
residence in Berlin. He was 62.
He had been a member of the
German nobility. Other sources
(Mieses and Kagan) say that he
was suffering from severe
arteriosclerosis and was trying
to get fresh air. He opened a low
silled window on the second
floor of his apartment and fell
out. His life and death were the
basis for that of the main
character in the 1930 novel The
Defense by Vladimir Nabokov,
which was made into the movie
The Luzhin Defence (2000).

In 1925, at Baden-Baden, Carlos

Torre (1904-1978) was playing
Richard Reti (1889-1929). On
Black's 22nd move, Reti tried to
castle long (O-O-O) when Torre
was walking around the
tournament hall. When Torre
returned, he pointed out that
castling long was illegal. It
looked legal. However, during
the earlier part of the game, Reti
moved his queen rook off its
original square from a8 to b8
(8th move), then moved it back
a few moves later (13th move).
Reti had forgotten he had moved
his rook. The rules stated that
Black had to move the first
piece that he touched. Reti could
not remember whether he
touched the rook or the king
first, so it was ruled that he had
to make a king move. The game
ended in a draw after 31 moves.
Years later, Korchnoi also made
the same mistake and tried to
castle after moving his rook
from its original square and back
to the original square. GM Yuri
Averbakh was also unclear of
the rules for castling in one of
his tournament games.

In 1927, Efim Bogoljubov

(1889-1952) was officially
excommunicated from the
USSR. Because he "exhibited
the typically bourgeois vice of
putting his pocket book above
has principles," Bogoljubov,
who was chess champion of the
Soviet Union, was
excommunicated by the chess
section of the All-Union Soviet
of Physical Culture. The chess
section declared he was no
longer chess champion. He was
also no longer a member of the
Soviet chess organization. He
was expelled when he expressed
the desire to give up his Soviet
citizenship in order to be able to
attend a tournament in Merano,
Italy. He was unable to go
because the Italian authorities
refused to recognize his Soviet
passport. Bogoljubov wrote to
the Soviet chess organization
declaring that in view of the
difficulties of moving about
Europe with a Soviet passport,
he was thinking of assuming the
citizenship of another country.

In 1927, Marcel Duchamp

(1887-1978) married his first
wife, the young heiress Lydie
Sarazin-Lavassor, and went on
their honeymoon. The
honeymoon did not go well. One
night when he was asleep, she
glued all of his chess pieces to
the chess board because he spent
his honeymoon week studying
chess. They were divorced 3
months later. Duchamp later
married Alexina "Teeny" Sattler
in 1954. They were both avid
chess players.

In 1927, during the New York

International tournament, Aron
Nimzowitsch (1886-1935), who
hated smoking, asked Dr. Milan
Vidmar (1885-1962) not to
smoke. Vidmar agreed, but later
during the game, he absent-
mindedly took his cigar case out
of his pocket and laid it on the
chess table. Nimzowitch at once
left the table and ran to Geza
Maroczy (1860-1951), the
tournament director,
complaining that Vidmar had his
cigar case out. Maroczy said to
Nimzowitsch, "But Vidmar is
not smoking; his cigar case in
unopened." Nimzowitsch
responded, "I know, but as an
old chess player you must know
that the threat is stronger than
the execution." (source: Chess
Review, Sep 1936, p. 202)

In the late 1920s, Jose

Capablanca (1888-1942), world
chess champion from 1921 to
1927, spent his spare time
hanging out in a specific cafe in
Paris. Friends, acquaintances,
and others would often drop by,
participating in games and
libations with the former world
champion. One day, while
Capablanca was having coffee
and reading a newspaper, a
stranger stopped at his table,
motioned at the chess set and
indicated he would like to play
if Capablanca was interested.
Capablanca folded the
newspaper away, reached for the
board and proceeded to take his
own queen off the board and
play a queen down. The
opponent (who apparently had
no idea who Capablanca was)
reacted with slight anger. "Hey!
You don't know me! I might
beat you!" he said. Capablanca,
smiling gently, said quietly,
"Sir, if you could beat me, I
would know you."

In the late 1920s, Aron

Nimzowitsch (1886-1935)
visited Israel and went to a local
chess club anonymously. He
naturally crushed everyone else,
and eventually one of the old
kibitzers there told him: "You're
a pretty good player, your style
reminds me of Nimzowitsch..."

In 1928, before the start of the

2nd official Chess Olympiad at
The Hague, FIDE decided that
only amateurs could take part.
The British and Yugoslavia
suspected that the USA team
included chess professionals, so
they withdrew in protest. Just
before the start of the Olympiad,
FIDE canceled the ban on
professionals, but it was too late
for most of the 17 teams to send
their best players. Isaac Kashdan
won the gold medal with the
score of 13 out of 15.

In April, 1930, chess was

banned in Harbin, China as too
dangerous and "against the
public welfare." Manchurian
Chinese police raided cafes and
other establishments to stop
anyone from playing chess.
Players protested they were not
gambling or playing for money.
The Chinese police responded,
"No matter. Such games are
dangerous."

In 1931, Geza Maroczy (1870-

1951) challenged Aron
Nimzowitch (1886-1935) to a
pistol duel at dawn during a
chess tournament in Bled.
Earlier, the two got in an
argument and when Maroczy
challenged Nimzowitch to a
duel, Nimzowitsch rightly
refused. Alekhine won the
event. Nimzowitsch took 3rd
place. Maroczy took llth place.
(source: Chess Life, March
1988, p. 11)

In the early 1930s, an amateur

approached Frank Marshall,
who was the US champ at the
time, and asked for help in a
postal chess game. Marshall
obliged and played a few
opening moves. A few days
later, another amateur dropped
in at the Marshall Chess Club to
also seek help in a postal game
from Marshall. Marshall
realized the game of the second
player was with the opponent
who had come in a few days
earlier. Marshall helped the
second player and then ended up
playing himself for several
months as the two amateurs
marveled at how their opponent
was able to play on for so long
against the great Frank
Marshall!

In the 1930s, the Mexican

government offered all foreign
chess masters officer
appointments as chess
instructors in the Mexican
Army. Borislav Kostich was
made a Colonel. Reuben Fine
and Isaac Kashdan were made
Lieutenants. Alexander
Alekhine and Jose Capablanca
were also chess instructors in
Mexico, but did not accept their
rank. This status and honorary
title facilitated their travels to
chess tournaments throughout
Mexico.

In the 1930s, former world

champion Max Euwe (1901-
1981) was in the train analyzing
chess on his pocket set. A
stranger approached him and
asked if they could play a couple
of games. Euwe agreed and they
played a couple of games which
he of course all won. His
opponent was quite baffled by
this and exclaimed: "I have
never lost so many games in a
row before. At the club they
even call me 'Little Euwe'."

In 1931, Geza Maroczy (1870-

1951), age 61, challenged Aron
Nimzowitsch (1886-1935) to a
pistol duel at dawn during the
Bled International Chess
Tournament. Nimzowitsch flatly
refused to participate. Maroczy
was satisfied since, to him, a
refusal to accept such a
challenge, as a matter of honor,
was worse than being shot.
Nimzowitsch took 3rd place
(won by Alekhine). Maroczy
took 11th place. (source: Chess
Life, March 1988, p. 11)
Maroczy was one of the original
group of grandmasters given
that title by FIDE, and the first
GM to die.

In 1931-1932, Dutch Master

Daniel Noteboom (1910-1932)
attended the Hastings Chess
Congress, held in December-
January. The weather was so
cold that he caught pneumonia
at Hastings and then died on
January 12, 1932. He was only
21.

In 1933 Joseph Goebbels (1897-

1945), Minister of Propaganda
and Enlightenment, wanted an
"All-German Chess League." He
barred all Jewish chess players
from official tournaments of the
German Chess League, as well
as ordinary chess clubs and cafe
playing rooms. Goebbels sought
out players who were of strong
National Socialist persuasion.
Goebbels was also the President
of the Grossdeutsch
Schachbund, a new German
chess federation that got funding
and encouragement from the
Nazi government. (source:
Chess Review, Sep 1933, p. 5)
Otto Zander, President of the
new league, said all Jews would
be excluded unless they proved
themselves at the front line of a
war.

At a New York chess

tournament during the
Depression, the first prize was a
keg of schmaltz herring.

In 1934, Svetozar Gligoric

(1923-2012) learned chess in
Belgrade, taught be a boarder
taken in by his mother
(Gligoric's father died when
Svetozar was 9). He had first
seen chess being played in a
neighborhood bar. Gligoric did
not have a chess set at home, so
he made himself a chess set by
carving chess pieces from corks
from wine bottles. Gligoric
became a chess master at the age
of 16.

Up to 1934, neither Emanuel

Lasker nor Jose Capablanca had
ever finished below 3rd in chess
tournament play. But in 1934,
Lasker finished 5th at Zurich,
his poorest tournament
performance up to that date. In
1935, Capablanca finished 4th at
Moscow, his poorest tournament
performance up to that date.

Moscow 1935 was the second

international chess tournament
held in Moscow. Over 100,000
people requested tickets to
witness the first round. (source:
Chess Review, May 1936, p,
118) Salo Flohr and Mikhail
Botvinnik tied for first, followed
by Emanuel Lasker at age 66
(3rd place) and Capablanca (4th
place). Lasker did not lose a
game and Capablanca lost two
games (to Lasker and Riumin).
Botvinnik arrived 10 minutes
late for his game with
Capablanca because he forgot
his glasses. The game was later
drawn.

In 1935 at Margate, a small boy

handed up his autograph to Sir
George Thomas (1881-1972),
who promptly signed it. Then
the boy handed the book to
Heinrich Fraenkel (1897-1996),
who was reporting on the
tournament, and when he told
the boy that surely there could
be no point in getting his
autograph, the boy disagreed.
"Oh yes, sir," the boy said, "I
must have your autograph too."
Fraenkel responded, "But why
on earth? It's no good in your
collection." "Oh yes, sir", said
the boy, his face beaming, "I
saw you talk to Capablanca!"'
(source: Chernev, The Bright
Side of Chess, p. 17 and
Fraenkel's Foreword to
Capablanca's Last Chess
Lectures, 1967)

On August 20, 1935, Agnes

Lawson-Stevenson was killed by
a propeller of an airplane. She
was four-time British Ladies'
Champion and was married to
Rufus Stevenson, the editor of
the British Chess Magazine. She
was on her way to the Women's
World Championship from
Berlin to Warsaw by plane. The
aircraft stopped in Poznan,
Poland and she left the aircraft
to have her passport checked.
She returned to the aircraft from
the front of the plane and ran
into the moving propeller. Two
years later, Rufus Stevenson
married the world woman
champion, Vera Menchik, who
later died from a V-1 rocket
attack on her home.

In 1935, the All-Russian Trade

Union Chess Tournament began
in Russia. It had 700,000 players
in the event! The tournament
was held in factories, plants,
railways, farms, etc. The
tournament represented 110
trade unions in 6 cities. The
tournament lasted 6 months,
completing in January 1936.
Georgy Lisitsin (1909-1972) and
Vitaly Chekhover (1908-1965)
tied for first place. (source:
Chess Review, April 1936, p.
92)

In 1936, at a chess tournament

in England, Mikhail Botvinnik
(1911-1995) was walking with
Max Euwe and remarked, "We
don't have such dogs in the
Soviet Union," upon seeing a
rare breed. Euwe responded,
"No, I suppose your people have
eaten them all." This caused a
rift with Botvinnik that lasted
for years, but was eventually
healed.

In 1937, Polish chess master

Achilles Frydman (1905-1940s)
had just left a mental asylum
and was warned not to play
chess. However, he played in the
1937 Polish chess championship
and suffered a nervous
breakdown. He could not finish
the tournament after 15 rounds
of a 21 round event. Reuben
Fine, in his book, The
Psychology of the Chess Player,
stated that Frydman had run
through the hotel without any
clothes, shouting "Fire!" George
Koltanowski, in one of his
columns, wrote that Frydman
insisted in walking around in the
lobby naked. A Polish
newspaper column reported that
A. Frydman had caused many
difficulties for the tournament
management and for the players.
Gideon Stahlberg had the room
next to Frydman and could not
sleep because Frydman would
yell "check" and "checkmate" all
night long. Najdorf blamed two
losses on Frydman's
interruptions (Frydman would
run to the phone after every
move and make a long distance
phone call). In 1938, during a
tournament in Lodz, Achilles
Frydman showed up naked to
play Tartakower. Frydman was
later put in a mental asylum in
Kocborowo. In 1940, he was
arrested by the Nazis in Warsaw
and died in a concentration
camp.

In 1938 at Margate, Alexander

Alekhine was playing Eero
Book (1910-1990). During the
game, Alekhine had sacrificed
his rook and got up and started
to walk around a bit. Seeing
Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997),
Alekhine said to him "I have
sacrificed a rook; what do you
think?" When Najdorf looked at
the position, he didn't
understand the move and
couldn't see a thing in the
position, but still he replied that
it was very interesting. After
Alekhine won the game
spectacularly, Najdorf, in awe of
the game later asked Alekhine
"Doctor, to tell you the truth
when you made the sacrifice I
did not see anything" Alekhine
replied "Neither did I." Shocked
by the reply, Najdorf asked him
"then why did you sacrifice?" to
which Alekhine's answer was " I
have a big nose"! (He was
referring to himself as Pinocchio
and was lying)

In 1939, US master Weaver

Adams (1901-1963) wrote a
book called White to Play and
Win. After publication of the
book, he played in the US Open
chess tournament in Dallas in
1940. He did not win a single
game with White, and won all
four of his games as Black!
Adams then played a match with
IA Horowitz. Adams had White
every game and Horowitz had
Black every game. Adams lost
the match. Weaver Adams's
mother's side was been traced
back to the founding fathers of
America. Arnold Denker related
of Weaver Adams that he was "a
master who inherited a chicken
farm and who was — so to
speak — a White man clear
through. He wrote a book, White
to Play and Win, lived in a
White house on White Street,
chewed antacid pills that left the
inside of his mouth perpetually
White, and raised only white
chickens that laid white eggs."
Harry Golombek wrote in 1977
that Adams, whom he described
as "author of White to Play and
Win and a sodium bicarbonate
addict", was on Golombek's
"reserves" list for "the ten most
interesting personages" from the
past 100 years.

In September 1939, the British

chess team at the Chess
Olympiad in Buenos Aires had
just qualified for the finals.
However, World War II broke
out and the entire team was
recalled back to England on the
next ship out. During one
watchkeeping at night, Stuart
Milner-Barry (1906-1995) sent
out an alarm to the rest of the
ship when he thought he had
spotted a U-boat. It turned out to
be a porpoise following the ship.
Most of the British chess
masters from the Olympiad went
to work as code breakers.

In 1939, Sonja Graf (1914-1965)

was woman champion of her
native Germany. She traveled to
Buenos Aires to play on the
German team in the 8th Chess
Olympiad. She was prevented
from playing on the German
team by a Nazi edict for her
outspoken defiance of Hitler's
government, and was taken off
the list of Olympiad participants.
She then decided to play in the
Women's World Chess
Championship, held at the same
time in Buenos Aires. She went
on to play at large under the
banner of "Liberty." The
Argentines made her a flag with
the word "Libra" written on it.
She played the entire
tournament, winning 16 games
and losing 3, taking 2nd place,
behind world champion Vera
Menchik. After the Olympiad,
she refused to return to Germany
and stayed in Argentina. She
married a merchant mariner,
Vernon Stevenson, and moved
to Hollywood in 1947.

In early 1939, the Hollywood

Anti-Nazi League Chess Club
was formed, mostly made up of
Jewish players. It defeated
Herman Steiner's Hollywood
Chess Institute in match play,
but lost to the stronger Los
Angeles Chess and Checker
Club. (source: Chess Review,
May 1939, p. 104)

In 1940, Al Horowitz (1907-

1973) survived a car crash that
killed his chess partner, Harold
Morton (1906-1940). The two
had been giving simultaneous
chess exhibitions throughout the
country. On February 17, 1940,
a truck collided with the car in
which Morton was driving near
Carroll, Iowa. Morton, New
England chess champion since
1929, was killed instantly and
Horowitz had a brain concussion
and other injuries. Morton was
also Horowitz's partner in
publishing Chess Review
magazine.

On September 23, 1940, a

German air raid destroyed the
National Chess Centre, the
largest chess club in London. It
had over 700 members. The club
was located in the Cavendish
Square building of the John
Lewis Partnership on Oxford
Street. The contents of chess
club were entirely destroyed.
The manager of the club was
world woman champion Vera
Menchik, who later died in
another air raid. The National
Chess Centre was re-opened in
1952, just opposite of the
original building, and was active
throughout the 1950s. The
National Chess Centre no longer
exists.

In 1942, Arnold Denker (1914-

2005) beat Samuel Reshevsky
(1911-1992) on time in the US
chess championship. While
spectators watch, the tournament
director, Walter Stephens (1883-
1948), mistakenly declared that
Denker's time had expired.
Stephens was looking at the
clock backwards and refused to
change his decision, which
ultimately gave Reshevsky the
title.

In 1943, the FBI prevented

Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957)
from playing postal chess,
thinking that the chess notation
were secret codes. He and his
wife, Lauren Bacall, appeared
on the cover of Chess Review in
1945, playing chess with
Charles Boyer. George
Koltanowski (1903-2000) was
also barred from playing postal
chess or give chess lessons to
students overseas or in South
America. Wartime mail
regulations prevented mailing
abroad any abbreviations,
nicknames, and codes.

During World War II, it was

reported that grandmaster Paul
Keres (1916-1975) of Estonia
was bombed by the Germans
and had to have his leg
amputated. Keres saved the lives
of several radio operators after
warning them that the NKVD
(the Russian People's
Commissariat for Internal
Affairs) was looking for them.
(source: Chess Review,
February 1945, p. 9)

During World War II, two chess

players were sitting in a
coffeehouse in Berlin playing
each other a game of chess. The
Allied Forces were bombing the
city heavily and suddenly there
was a terrible big noise outside,
right in front of the coffeehouse.
Something was hit and blasted
away. It was getting late and
after the game was finished, the
two chess players went in the
direction of the door. The room
seemed to be somehow bigger
than usual. One of the players
said, "Hey, there is something
wrong here. I can't find the
door." It was already late at
night and dark. The two players
went further and suddenly they
were standing on the road. They
had a look around and were
amazed to see that the front of
the coffeehouse was completely
missing and that a lot of house
were completely destroyed.

In June 1944, Vera Menchik-

Stevenson (1906-1944),
women's world chess champion
since 1927, was killed when a
V-1 rocket bombing raid hit her
home (47 Gauden Road,
Clapham) in South London. Her
younger sister, Olga, and mother
also died in the air raid. Their
bomb shelter, a few yards away,
was undamaged. Today, the
address is an apartment
complex.

After World War II, Cold War

spies in Germany sent postcards
back to MI5 in England
containing coded messages
written in cryptic text base
around a series of postal chess
games. Gordon Thomas,
historian for MI5 and MI6, said
that chess moves were a
common way of communicating
during the Cold War. He also
said the Russians in particular
favored using chess as a method
of communicating. It was their
great national pastime and
information would often be
disguised as chess moves.

In July-August 1945, the

Hollywood Chess Group and the
Los Angeles Times organized
the Pan-American International
Tournament. Unfortunately, the
USA was still at war in the
Pacific and transportation was
difficult for many of the
invitees. Herman Pilnik of
Argentina was a last-minute
replacement. He lost his plane
reservation and drove by car. He
crashed his car into an unlighted
truck at night in Arizona, but
arrived 3 days later with head
wounds. Singer and actress
Carmen Miranda (1909-1955)
was there to open the event and
draw the players' numbers for
the pairings. Humphrey Bogart,
a tournament director of the U.S.
Chess Federation, was selected
as the Master of Ceremonies.
One of the spectators of the
tournament was actress Marlene
Dietrich (1904-1992), a chess
player. Samuel Reshevsky won
the event and $1,000.

In 1946, British chess

International Master Conel
Hugh O'Donel Alexander (1909-
1974) was awarded the
Commander of the Most
Excellent Order of the British
Empire (CBE) for his
contributions as a top British
cryptanalyst. After the award,
Alexander was asked by an
interviewer, "Does that mean
you are a Knight?" Alexander
replied, "Alas, barely a tempo."

In 1948 at Saltsjobaden, David

Bronstein (1924-2006) survived
an assassination attack during
the Interzonal tournament. On
the last day Bronstein was
playing Savielly Tartakover.
Suddenly, a Lithuanian made a
lunge at Bronstein to kill him.
Several spectators grabbed him.
He wanted to murder all
Russians because he claimed the
Russians were responsible for
sending his sister to Siberia and
murdering her. Bronstein won
the game and the Interzonal with
a 13.5-5.5 score .

In 1948, Kit Crittenden won the

North Carolina State Chess
Championship at the age of 13,
becoming the nation's youngest
state champion. The year before,
he finished in last place in the
NC championship. He won the
NC championship 5 times.

In March 1949, Jacques Mieses

(1865-1954), age 84, defeated
Dirk van Foreest (1862-1956),
age 86 during an exhibition
game at The Hague. After the
game, Mieses was quoted as
saying, "Youth has triumphed."

In 1949, when Zsa Zsa Gabor

(born in 1917) married the actor
George Sanders (1906-1972),
her third husband, they played
chess "incessantly" on their
honeymoon. George wrote in his
autobiography that the two
played chess nearly every night
on their honeymoon.

In 1949, in a match between

Reuben Fine and Miguel
Najdorf, one of the games was
adjourned after 45 moves. At the
adjournment, there was an
ending with a knight and three
pawns for Najdorf and a knight
and two pawns for Fine, all
pieces in the same side, but with
Najdorf's pawns connected, and
Fine's pawns isolated. Fine, who
had just written his famous
Basic Chess Endings, said to
Najdorf, "We are wasting our
time. Look at my book, and
you'll see this is a theoretical
draw." Najdorf replied, "I think
I'm a little better, and would like
to play on a bit more." Fine then
said, "I bet you a thousand
dollars that this is a draw."
Najdorf replied, "That is too
much money for me! I'll bet you
two hundred." Fine responded,
"Look, I don't want to steal your
money. Let's follow without bets
if that makes you happy." It
turned out that Najdorf was right
and he won the game. Fine had
to change the conclusion from
his own endgame book. Fine
said it only took 3 months to
write Basic Chess Endings.

In 1950, Chantal Chaude de

Silans (1919-2001) was the first
female to play in the Chess
Olympiads. She played on the
men's French team as first
reserve. She won one, drew one,
and lost four games at the 9th
Chess Olympiad, held in
Dubrovnik in 1950.

In 1952, there was an

international tournament in
Havana. During the event, there
was a revolution in Cuba. The
President who sponsored the
tournament was deposed. The
Mexican entrants were recalled
by their government. The Cuban
chess champion, Juan Quesada,
died of a heart attack during the
event. His funeral was attended
by all the masters participating
in the tournament.

In the 1950s, a Louisiana law

barred blacks from chess
playing rooms in New Orleans.
This prevented blacks from
playing in the U.S. Open chess
tournament in 1954, which was
held in New Orleans. Several
Blacks tried to enter the event,
but were refused. (source: Chess
Life, July 20, 1954)

In 1954, the U.S. Open chess

tournament in New Orleans
banned African-Americans from
entering the open tournament.
At the time, Louisiana
segregated Black and White
chess players, even in chess
clubs. In 1955, an African-
American chess player, William
A. Scott, was refused to be
allowed to play in the Georgia
Open chess championship.

In 1954, the Argentine Chess

Federation called off the
national chess tournament after
a chess player punched a
tournament director. (source:
Chess Review, December 1954,
p. 358)

The Rosenwald Trophy for the

U.S. championship in the 1950s
was engraved incorrectly. The
engraving says Lavore Praetium
Honoris (washing is the price of
honor) instead of Labore
Praetium Honoris (labor is the
price of honor). Some chess
players thought the prize might
be a bar of soap. (source: Chess
Life, January 5, 1955, p. 2)

Moonraker, the third James

Bond novel by Ian Fleming
(1908-1964), written in 1954,
contains references to Paul
Morphy. "Morphy, the great
chess player, had a terrible habit.
He would never raise his eyes
from the game until he knew his
opponent could not escape
defeat. Then he would slowly
lift his great head and gaze
curiously at the man across the
board. His opponent would feel
the gaze and would slowly,
humbly raise his eyes to meet
Morphy's. At that moment he
would know that it was no good
continuing the game. The eyes
of Morphy said so. There was
nothing left but surrender. Now,
like Morphy, Bond lifted his
head and looked straight into
Drax's eyes. Then he slowly
drew out the queen of diamonds
and placed it on the table.
Without waiting for Meyer to
play he followed it, deliberately,
with the 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and the two
winning clubs." It was a battle
over a game of bridge.
Moonracker was Britain's first
nuclear missile project. In 1957,
Fleming wrote From Russia,
With Love with several
references to chess.

In 1955, Fridrik Olafsson (born

in 1935) of Iceland arrived late
to participate in the annual
Christmas Hastings tournament
in England. No rooms could be
found for him, so he spent his
first night in a jail cell at the
Hastings police station as a
guest to the local police.
Olafsson went on to tie for 1st
place with Vicktor Korchnoi in
this event. Olafsson became
Iceland's first chess grandmaster
in 1958.

The Rosenwald Trophy for the

U.S. chess championship in the
1950s was engraved incorrectly.
The engraving says Lavore
Praetium Honoris (washing is
the price of honor) instead of
Labore Praetium Honoris (labor
is the price of honor). Some
chess players thought the prize
might be a bar of soap.

In 1955, an African-American
chess player, William A. Scott,
was refused to be allowed to
play in the Georgia Open chess
championship.

In 1956, Isaac Kashdan (1905-

1985) appeared on Groucho
Marx's You Bet Your Life. The
episode aired February 9, 1956.
Groucho called him "Mr. Ash
Kan" throughout the show.
Kashdan's partner was Helen
Schwartz, the mother of Tony
Curtis. Kashdan told Groucho
that it was pretty hard to cheat in
chess. Groucho responded, "If I
can't cheat, forget it. The only
fun I have in any game is
cheating." They failed to win
any money and did not say the
secret word.

In 1957, Bill Lombardy won the

World Junior Chess
Championship in Toronto,
scoring 11 out of 11. Following
him was the German player
Matthias Gerusel and the Dutch
player Lex Jongsma. The USSR
representative, Vladimir
Selimanov, could only manage
4th place. This was very
disappointing, as the Soviets
expected him to win the gold
medal. After all, the previous
world junior championship, held
in 1955, was won by Boris
Spassky. And what happened to
Selimanov? He was barred from
any further international chess.
Three years later, at age 21, he
committed suicide by jumping
out of a window from a high
building. Selimanov's step-
father was ex-world champion
GM Vasily Smyslov.
Selimanov's father was killed in
a Stalinist purge.

In the late 1950s, Bobby Fischer

was playing blitz in a Moscow
chess club during his visit, and
absolutely beating everyone in
sight until Petrosian, who was
then in his prime, came along
and gave Bobby his first losses.
At the time young Bobby had
the habit of adjusting his
opponent's pieces during the
game if they weren't in the
middle of the square. Also,
while his opponent was
pondering a move, he would
now and then brush imaginary
specks of dust off the board.
Nobody had said anything, but
when Fischer touched one of
Petrosian's pieces to adjust it, he
got a lesson he never forgot. The
Armenian champion was a
strong man despite his short
stature. Petrosian quickly
stretched out his big hand and
gave young Bobby an incredibly
hard rap on the knuckles. This
no-nonsense punishment worked
absolute wonders! Fischer never
ever again touched an
opponent's pieces after that
rather painful experience.

On October 8, 1958 at the 13th

Chess Olympiad in Munich,
Germany, Spain vs. USA were
matched. On third board Roman
Toran (1931-2005) and Arthur
Bisguier (1929-2017) were
playing. When Bisguier
resigned, Toran said with a
smile, "I am so happy, it is the
best present for my birthday!"
Bisguier replied, "It's all right,
today happens to be my birthday
too."

In the 1958 Chess Olympiad,

Frank Anderson (1928-1980)
scored 84% before his final
round. In the final round, he
became ill and was unable to
play the final round for Canada.
He missed the Grandmaster title
because of this missed game.
Even if he had played and lost,
he would have made the final
norm necessary for the GM
title.

In 1958, The Gambit Chess

Club in London finally closed. It
began as a coffee house in 1898.
From 1898 to 1958, it was only
closed for two days during
September 1940, when it was
bombed during a Nazi air raid.
During its existence, it only had
one burglary. A man once died
at the club while playing chess.
The club was owned and run by
Edith Price, who, for many
years, did not allow women to
enter the club, although she did
hire waitresses for the club.

In 1959, the US Junior chess

champion was allowed to play in
the US championship. In 1959,
Robin Ault (1941-1994) was
allowed to play in the 1959-
1960 US championship, but lost
all 11 games. After that, the US
junior champion was not
allowed to automatically play in
the US championship. Robin
Ault was the first person to win
the US Junior championship
three times (1959-1961).

In 1960, Walter Harris of

Harlem became the first
African-American chess master,
at the age of 18. On May 11,
1958, he drew a game against
Bobby Fischer in a live TV
simul in New York. In 1959, he
played in the U.S. Open in
Omaha, Nebraska and defeated
several other masters (he took
27th out of 135 players). He
won the top 'Class A' prize. He
was unable to get a hotel room
where the tournament was held
because he was Black. In 1959,
he played in the U.S. Junior
championship, taking 5th place
out of 40 players. He later gave
up chess and became a physicist.
He was a physicist at the U.S.
Naval Observatory for several
years.

Shortly after midnight on June

1, 1960, Michael George, an
American sailor, got into a fight
at a Greenwich Village bar
(Chumley's) in New York after a
spectator and regular patron,
Clinton Curtis, criticized the
sailor's chess game after he had
lost a chess game to freelance
writer Lauren Disney. Michael
struck Curtis with a glass in his
hand that smashed and severed
his jugular vein. Curtis bled to
death. Michael was later
acquitted of murder and charged
with accidental death.

In 1961, US chess champion

Larry Evans (1932-2010) was
giving a simultaneous exhibition
in a mental institution in New
York. He made pretty good
result but one opponent was
playing absolutely brilliant and
defeated GM Evans. Evans won
39 games and lost one game. As
he was leaving the facility,
Larry congratulated the winner
once again and the patient said:
"Mister Evans. For one it's not
indispensable to be crazy so he
could play good, but it really
helps a lot."

In 1961, Ernst Grunfeld, age 67,

was playing in a chess
tournament at Beverwijk in the
Netherlands. Grunfeld had lost a
leg when in his early childhood
and had an artificial leg. Despite
his age, and this handicap, he
spurned the organizers' offer of
a car, and insisted on walking
the mile or so from where he
was staying to the chess
tournament hall each afternoon.
On one particular day, he set off,
but fell down in the road, and
his wooden leg came off and fell
into a ditch! A distressed
Grunfeld managed to get to a
phone booth and ring the
organizers. The organizers
contacted Max Euwe, who came
on the line. Hearing of
Grunfeld's plight, he jumped
into a car, and a few minutes
later, he managed to rescue
Grunfeld and his wooden leg
and take him back to the house
he was staying at. After a
refreshing cup of coffee and a
few minutes' rest, Grunfeld was
re-united with his artificial leg
and driven to the tournament
hall. Unfortunately, he faced the
East German GM Wolfgang
Uhlmann that day, and despite
having White, the trauma took
its toll on him. He lost in just 21
moves!

In 1961, Marcel Duchamp

persuaded several eminent
painters and artists to donate
their work to help raise money
for sending an American chess
team abroad. He visited the set
of "Paris Blues" to teach Duke
Ellington to play chess.
Ellington watched Duchamp
demonstrate the fundamental
moves, then made his sole
comment, "Crazy, man, crazy."

In 1961-62, Lisa Lane (1938- )

played four games in the
Hastings Reserve tournament,
then withdrew after one draw,
two losses, and an adjourned
game. She said she could not
concentrate on her chess
because she was "homesick and
in love." In 1960 she appeared
on "What's My Line" and was
on the cover of Sports
Illustrated. Only she and Bobby
Fischer has been on the cover of
Sports Illustrated.

In 1962, Milton Ioannidis of

Cyprus (Board 3) played all 20
games in the 15th Chess
Olympiad, held in Varna. He
lost all 20 games, the worst
performance of any chess player
at any Chess Olympiad. He
played in the 16th Chess
Olympiad in Tel Aviv and lost
all four games that he played on
Board 4. He lost all 24 games he
played in Chess Olympiad
competition.

In July 1963, the First

Piatigorsky Cup was held in The
Ambassador Hotel in Los
Angeles. Paul Keres and world
champion Tigran Petrosian tied
for 1st place. They split $5,250
in prize money. If the money
had been returned to the USSR,
they would have been
exchanged for rubles at an
unfavorable rate. So Keres and
Petrosian each bought a car
(AMC Rambler) with their
winnings. Petrosian was the first
reigning champion to play in an
American tournament since
Alexander Alekhine at Pasadena
in 1932. The tournament was the
strongest to be held in the
United States since New York
1927. Bobby Fischer was invited
to play, but Fischer also asked
for a $2,000 appearance fee. He
declined the invitation after his
appearance fee was denied. His
invitation went to Pal Benko,
who finished in last place. Each
round saw almost 500 spectators
at the event.

In 1963, Mrs. Edvige Ruinstein,

the wife of a chessplayer in
Milan, Italy was granted a
divorce from her husband on the
grounds that he was so obsessed
with chess that he refused to
work and support their two
children.

In 1965, Ray Charles (1930-

2004) learned chess after being
busted and hospitalized for
heroin addiction. He learned
chess in the hospital where he
went cold turkey.

In 1966, the US Open chess

tournament was held at the
Seattle World's Fair grounds.
The Beatles were on the grounds
to give a concert. At the chess
playing site, the tournament
director drew the curtains over
the playing hall. Hundreds of
Beatle fans, seeing the hall
shrouded by the drapes, assumed
the Beatles were inside. They
began pounding on the windows
to see the Beatles until someone
opened the drapes to reveal a
chess tournament was taking
place.

In 1966, during the Chess

Olympiad in Havana, Mikhail
Tal (1936-1992) went out one
evening to a local bar in the city.
Apparently, he was caught
flirting with a local woman,
whose husband or boyfriend
took exception. Tal ended up
being struck over the head with
a beer bottle. As a result, he
missed the first four rounds of
the event, and when he did
appear in the tournament hall, it
was with his head heavily
bandaged.

In 1966, chess was banned in

China as part of the Cultural
Revolution. By 1974, there was
an easing of the ban. China
began to participate in
international events in 1976 and
has now become a world power
in chess.

In 1967, a famous incident

occurred in a game between
Milan Matulovic and Istvan
Bilek at the Sousse Interzonal in
Tunisia. Matulovic played a
losing move but then took it
back after saying "J'adoube" ("I
adjust" — which should be
announced before adjusting
pieces on their square). His
opponent complained to the
arbiter but the modified move
was allowed to stand. This
incident earned Matulovic the
nickname "J'adoubovic."

In 1968, Dris Benabud travelled

all the way from Morocco to the
18th Chess Olympiad in
Lugano, Germany, just to play
one game of chess. He only
played one game as second
reserve and lost (to a Swedish
player). He is the only chess
player in Chess Olympiad
history to play less than 3 games
in a Chess Olympiad.

On June 9, 1970, cosmonauts

Vitaly Sevastyanov (1935-2010)
and Andrian Nikolayev played
chess against their ground
control while on board Soyuz 9.
It was the first time chess was
played in space. The mission,
and the chess game, was
commemorated in a stamp
issued shortly after the mission
was completed. Sevastyanov
later became head of the Soviet
Chess Federation.

In 1971, Trevor Stowe, an

antiques dealer in London was
arrested and fined for indecent
exhibition of a chess set while
on display in the window of his
shop. Each of the 32 pieces
showed couples in sexual
positions. The dealer had to pay
$132 in fines and court costs.
Stowe specialized in newly
manufactured chess sets at his
"Galeries d'Echec" in Harcourt
Street, London.

In 1971, Mark Taimanov lost to

Fischer 6-0 in Vancouver,
British Columbia, and returned
to the USSR in disgrace.
Normally grandmasters are not
searched when crossing the
border to the Soviet Union, but
Taimanov was asked to open his
luggage for examination. They
found one of Solzhenitsin's
banned books which Taimanov
brought from Canada. He was
stripped of his title 'Honored
Master of Sport' and deprived of
his monthly earnings for holding
the grandmaster title. Both were
returned to him when Fischer
also beat Larsen 6-0.
Taimanov's trainer, Evgeny
Vasiukov, blamed Taimanov's
loss to malnutrition. Taimanov
was trying to save money (he
was allocated $11 a day for food
by the USSR Sports Committee)
and paid less for food so that he
could buy some things he
couldn't buy in the USSR.
Taimanov never visited the
restaurant of his 5-star hotel that
he was staying at. He purchased
cheap food products at a
supermarket instead.

In 1971, Tigran Petrosian lost

his Candidates match with
Fischer in Buenos Aires. After
the match, Petrosian's wife,
Rona, blamed Petrosian's loss on
his trainer, Alexei Suetin. Rona
slapped Suetin's face for his
poor analysis after Tigran lost
the 6th game.

In 1972, during the World

Youth Team championship in
Graz, Switzerland, Robert
Huebner of Germany was
scheduled to play Ken Rogoff of
the USA. Both were tired from
previous long games and
Huebner offered a draw to
Rogoff without making any
moves. However, the arbiters
did not like this and refused the
game. So the two players put
together a scoresheet of a game
that looked like this: 1.Nf3 Nf6
2.Ng1 Ng8 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Ng1
Ng8 and so on ... Draw. The
arbiters were not amused. They
insisted that the two play some
real moves. So the next game
went 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nf1
Bg7 4.Qa4 O-O 5.Qxd7 Qxd7
6.g4 Qxd2+ 7.Kxd2 Nxg4 8.b4
a5 9.a4 Bxa1 10.Bb2 Nc6
11.Bh8 Bg7 12.h4 axb4 draw.
The arbiters were not amused.
They insisted that the two play a
valid game. Rogoff agreed but
Huebner did not, so Rogoff was
given a win and Huebner was
given a loss. The Russian team
pressed for a double forfeit, but
Huebner insisted that he alone
bore responsibility. Years later,
the main arbiter, Sajtar, admitted
he was wrong in ordering a
rematch of the games.
In 1972, at the world chess
championship match in
Reykjavik, Iceland, Bobby
Fischer, arbiter Lothar Schmid,
and reporter Brad Darrach were
in a hotel room working out
some details in the arrangement
of the match. At one point,
Schmidt stood up abruptly and
hit his head on a low-hanging
overhead light. Bobby said,
"Wow, are you OK, Lothar?"
Afterwards, Schmidt often
defended Fischer in discussions
about all the difficulties of the
match. Lothar would say, "Say
what you will about Bobby, but
he really cares about people!"
However, after Fischer and
Darrach left the room, Bobby
broke up and laughed
hysterically about Schmidt's
mishap: "Did you see Lothar
whack his head! Pretty funny.
Ha-Ha-Ha!" Fischer wasn't
really concerned about Lothar
Schmid and hitting his head on a
light.

In 1972, Larry Evans was

playing Anthony Saidy in the
final round of the Church's Fried
Chicken San Antonio
tournament. The game was
adjourned and Saidy had a
winning position. Evans, after
staying up all night studying the
lost position, decided the
adjourned position was hopeless
and booked an early flight
home. The next day, Saidy
blundered on move 46. At move
60 when there was still time to
catch the plane, Evans said "It's
a book draw." "Show me the
book" replied Saidy. Evans
responded, "I have a schedule to
meet." Saidy replied, "Show me
the schedule." With each move
the draw became more obvious.
Finally, Saidy said "You know
it's against the rules to talk to
your opponent." "Show me the
rules!" said Evans . The game
was finally drawn after 106
moves. After the game, Saidy
told Evans "You know we have
played 12 games and it was the
first time I was up a pawn
against you. I was enjoying it
too much. Sorry." The
tournament director later told
Evans that he should not have
told Saidy that he had a plane to
catch. When Saidy finally
signed the score sheets, Evans
rushed off to the San Antonio
airport, but he missed his flight
and had to stay another day.

In 1973, during the Anglo-Dutch

match, chain smoker Jan Donner
(1927-1988) was filling up a
large Bakelite ashtray with all of
his discarded cigarettes.
Cigarette after cigarette and all
the ashes were making a big pile
in the ashtray, much of which
was still emitting smoke.
Eventually, after several hours
of play and several packs of
cigarettes, the mountain of ash
and discarded cigarettes burst
into flames, causing the Bakelite
ashtray to crack completely in
half. The players were still
transfixed on the position of
their game as the chess table
started to burn, with neither
player seemingly about to take
any action to control the fire. At
this point, Ray Keene picked up
Donner's coffee cup and threw
the contents over the fire. With
the chess table now covered in a
mess, the players looked at one
another and offered a draw,
shook hands, and left the table.

In October 1973, the Israel Open

was cancelled after a few rounds
due to the Yom Kippur war.
Actually, two old kibitzers
showed up and wondered why
there was nobody there. In 1982,
the Israel Chess Championship
was stopped in the middle of the
tournament as several of its
participants were called up for
army service in Lebanon. It was
later won by Yehuda Gruenfeld.

In 1974, Claude Bloodgood

(1937-2001) escaped from a
chess tournament after he and
another fellow inmate
chessplayer, Lewis Carpenter,
overpowered a guard watching
over him. They had received a
furlough to play in a local
Virginia chess tournament. He
was captured a few days later.
He had been sentenced to death
for killing his mother. While on
death row, he played over 1,200
postal chess games. He was
scheduled for execution 6 times,
but received a reprieve on all
occasions.

In 1974 in a tournament in
Poland, Mikhail Tal (1936-
1992) was playing Jan Adamski
(1943- ) with both players in
time trouble. Adamski's flag fell
but Tal lost a piece and resigned.
At that moment Tal's wife, who
had been counting the moves,
said "Black has not yet made 40
moves." The flag had fallen
before Tal resigned. The arbiter
intervened and awarded the win
to Tal, who went on to win the
tournament. Tal's wife scored
this point! Later, it was shown
that Adamski quit writing his
moves down after move 25
because of time trouble, and
then he added two fake moves
while reconstructing his
scoresheet to make it seem he
made more than 40 moves.

In 1975, International Master

Bernard Zuckerman (born in
1943) was playing in the
Cleveland International in Ohio.
A spectator became too loud for
him and Zuckerman told him to
shut up. When the spectator
continued to talk loudly,
Zuckerman threw a chess piece
(it was a bishop) at him.
Zuckerman was reprimanded for
his "unsportsmanlike" conduct.
Zuckerman has not played in a
serious chess tournament since
1990, but occasionally plays
blitz tournaments.

In 1976, during a chess

tournament in Palma de
Mallorca, Spain, Mikhail Tal
became the first Soviet
grandmaster to oppose a bull in
a bull-fighting arena. Years
later, Larry Christiansen also
opposed a bull in a bull-fighting
arena.

In 1977, during the candidates

semifinal match between Viktor
Korchnoi (1931-2016) and Lev
Polugaevsky (1934-1995) in
France, Korchnoi asked to play
under the Dutch flag. He had
defected earlier from the Soviet
Union and was now living in the
Netherlands. Victor Baturinsky
(1914-2002), the head of
Polugaevsky's delegation,
objected on the grounds that
Korchnoi had not been living in
the Netherlands for a full year
and could not play under the
Dutch flag. Korchnoi's
delegation of Raymond Keene
and Michael Stean suggested
that Korchnoi play under the
Jolly Roger pirate flag.

In 1979, Cecil Purdy of

Australia, the first
correspondence world
champion, was playing a game
of chess in Sydney when he
suffered a heart attack. His last
words to his son (who was also
in the same tournament) were
purportedly, "I have a win, but it
will take some time." Another
source says that his last words
were "I have to seal a move." He
died shortly after.

In November 1980, the Italian

chess championship was delayed
until 1981 because of a serious
earthquake in Naples, Italy that
killed 3,000 people. The
championship was eventually
won by Bela Toth.

In 1981, after former 39th U. S.

President Jimmy Carter (1924- )
left the White House, he wanted
to become a chess player. He
bought many chess books and
computer chess programs
throughout the years. He finally
gave up on chess around 1997,
saying: "I found that I don't have
any particular talent for chess. I
hate to admit it, but that's a
fact." He hand-carved his own
chess sets and contributed hand-
carved chess sets to the Carter
Center to be auctioned for
charity.

In 1982, Ken Thompson (1943-

) traveled to Moscow for a
computer chess tournament and
thought his computer, BELLE
(PDP-11/23), was traveling with
him on the airplane in a crate.
However, the U.S. Customs
Service confiscated the chess
computer at Kennedy Airport as
part of Operation Exodus, a
program to prevent illegal
export of high technology items
to the Soviets. It took over a
month and a $600 fine to
retrieve BELLE from customs.
Thompson later said that the
only way the BELLE would be a
military threat if it was dropped
from an airplane on the head of
some government official.
(source: Chess Life, September
1982, p. 12)
In 1982, the Ugandan chess
team showed up at Lugano,
Switzerland to play in the Chess
Olympiad. But the 1982 Chess
Olympiad was held in Lucerne,
Switzerland. The 1968 Chess
Olympiad was held in Lugano.

In 1983, Anna Akhsharumova

was playing the final round of
the Soviet Women's Chess
championship against her main
competitor, Nana Ioseliani.
Anna won the game on time
forfeit and should have won the
title. But the next day, Ioseliani
filed a protest alleging a
malfunction in the chess clock.
Ioseliani demanded a new game
be played. Anna refused to play,
so the result of her game with
Ioseliani was reversed by the
All-Union Board of Referees in
Moscow (the tournament itself
was being played in Tallinn),
thereby forfeiting her title. Anna
went from 1st place to 3rd place
over this decision.

Prior to 1984, Czechoslovakian

film director and chess
enthusiast Milos Forman was
trying to make a movie about
American chess player Paul
Morphy. He then changed his
mind and was attempting to
make a movie about the Fischer-
Spassky world championship
match. He even got Boris
Spassky to agree to play himself
and was trying to convince
Bobby Fischer to play himself.
He was going nowhere with
Fischer ("his personality wasn't
compatible with the rigors of
moviemaking") and decided to
make a movie about Mozart
instead. And glad he did.
Amadeus was nominated for 53
awards and received 40 awards,
including 8 Academy Awards
(including Best Picture).

The 1984 chess Olympiad was

supposed to have been played in
Indonesia, but they withdrew
their support due to reduced oil
revenues that would have paid
for the event. The 26th Chess
Olympiad was eventually held
in Thessalonki, Greece.

Dr. Timothy Leary (1920-1996)

used chess sets as visual props
for preparing classes at Harvard
in his lectures on LSD. He said,
"Life is a chess game of
experiences we play." He also
said, "There are three side
effects of acid: enhanced long-
term memory decreased short-
term memory, and I forgot the
third." He once wrote, "Foreign
policy is the game of mad
monsters playing chess
blindfolded with mammalian-
gene-pools as pawns."

In 1985, Viktor Korchnoi

claimed that he started a chess
game with the ghost of Geza
Maroczy (1870-1951). The
game lasted until 1993, when
Korchnoi won after 47 moves.
The game was played through a
"medium" named Robert
Rollans (1914-1993). Rollans
recorded Maroczy's moves by
automatic writing. He did not
know how to play chess at the
beginning of the match, but was
taught the game during the
match.

In 1985, Nick Down, a former

British Junior Correspondence
chess champion and Cambridge
graduate, entered the British
Ladies Correspondence Chess
Championship as Miss Leigh
Strange. He (she) won the event
(he won all the games but one)
and 15 British pounds. He was
later caught (a friend turned him
in) and admitted his deception
was a prank that got out of hand.
He also signed up for the Ladies
Postal Olympiad and started to
play before being caught. He
was later banned from the
British Correspondence Chess
Association for two years. The
title went to the runner-up,
Doreen Helbig.

In 1986, the world

championship match between
Kasparov and Karpov was
played in London and in
Leningrad. The purse for the
match was $900,000 and it was
all donated to the victims of the
nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

In 1986, the U.S. House of

Representatives passed House
Joint (HJ) Resolution 545 by
unanimous consent which stated
that the United States
government recognizes Bobby
Fischer (the resolution spelled
his name Fisher) as the official
World Chess Champion. The
resolution was sent to the
Committee on Post Office and
Civil Service. The resolution
then went to the Senate and
referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary where it was objected
by Senator Howard
Metzenbaum (1917-2008),
Democrat from Ohio. The
resolution died in the Senate's
Judiciary Committee a week
later. The resolution was drafted
by Representative Charles
(Chip) Pashayan, Republican
from California. Congressional
resolutions are non-binding and
has no force of law within or
outside the United States.
Pashayan later served as Fischer
pro bono lawyer.

In 1986, Alex Chang took 1st

place in the National Elementary
Championship. His older sister,
Angela, took 2nd place. (source:
Chess Life, August 1986, p. 24)

In 1987, Viktor Korchnoi was

playing Anatoly Karpov in a
tournament in Brussels. In a
drawn position, Korchnoi
accidently touched his king on
his 48th move, which would
have led to a loss of his knight
and loss of the endgame. Instead
of resigning normally, he took
his hand and swept all the chess
pieces off the chessboard and
onto the floor before storming
out.

In 1988, Grandmaster Jan

Donner (1927-1988) was asked
how he would prepare for a
chess match against a computer.
Donner replied: "I would bring a
hammer."

The first and only rated public

celebrity chess tournament was
held in Hollywood in 1988. The
eight celebrities that participated
were Lew Ayres, Erik Estrada,
Gene Scherer, William
Smithers, William Windom,
Gerry Goffin, Jimmy Komack,
and Hiram Strait. The event was
won by Hiram Strait.

In 1988, Guillermo Garcia

(1954-1990), three-time chess
champion of Cuba, took 2nd
place in the New York Open.
His $10,000 prize was
confiscated by the Department
of Treasury, invoking the
Trading with the Enemy Act of
1917, because he was Cuban.
The money is still in escrow.

In 1988, Ayatolla Ruhollah

Khomeini (1902-1989) allowed
chess to be played in Iran after
banning it for nine years. It was
banned because it was thought
that chess encouraged gambling,
that it hurts memory and may be
the cause of brain damage.

In 1989, I captained a 5-man Air

Force/Navy team from Moffett
Field Naval Air Station,
California, which participated in
the Pacific Armed Forces
Championship at another navy
base in Northern California.
After the first day, I was in 1st
place, but the rest of my team
mates didn't do so well. One of
my team mates, a navy
Lieutenant, J.G., had just lost a
long endgame that he should
have won. After the game, I
went over his game and pointed
out over a dozen moves that he
could have won or drawn. Every
time I showed him a winning
variation for him, he would
wince in pain, upset at what he
missed. As we drove back to
base, he kept playing over the
game, making him sicker. The
next morning, I tried to pick up
all the players for the next
rounds, but was told that the
Lieutenant wasn't going to make
it for the rest of the event.
Apparently, he had a heart
attack in the middle of the night
and was rushed to a Navy
hospital in Oakland. It looks like
the stress of missing all those
bad chess moves contributed to
a heart attack. He survived and
gave up chess.

In May 1990, top Russian

Grandmaster Artur Yusupov
returned to Moscow after taking
second equal prize at the SKA
tournament in Munich. Hence he
was carrying quite a lot of
money on the homeward trip.
Shortly after he had arrived
home, armed thieves came to his
apartment and proceeded to rob
him of money and other
valuables. Although Yusupov
put up no resistance, one of the
thieves panicked and discharged
a shotgun into his stomach. For
some time Yusupov was
critically ill, but his energy
levels were never quite the same
after this traumatic experience,
and he gradually fell back from
his position as one of the top
half-dozen players in the world.

In 1990 Bogdan Szetela noticed

a car drive by that looked like
his that had been stolen 11 days
earlier. But this car had a taxi
light on top and "Crescent Cab
Co." painted on the side.
Spotting a police officer, he told
the cop that the cab was his
stolen car. Police weren't
convinced until he told them that
he left a chess set in the trunk
before it was stolen. The police
popped the trunk and found the
chess set.

In 1991, International Master

Ricardo Calvo (1943-2002) was
censured by FIDE and declared
persona non grata for writing a
letter that was interpreted by
many Latin American readers as
racist. He wrote of an unnamed
South American journalist who
"corrupted" young people.

Perhaps the oldest person to

finally make master (rated over
2200) was Bernard Friend of
New Jersey. In 1991, at the age
of 71, he became a master for
the first time. (source: Chess
Life, September 1991, p. 37)

In December 1992, Bobby

Fischer was indicted on charges
that he had violated economic
sanctions against Yugoslavia by
playing a chess match there for
money. A Federal grand jury
were handed up the indictment
that accused Fischer of violating
an executive order issued by
President Bush in June that
restricted commercial relations
with what remains of
Yugoslavia. Immediately after
the indictment, Federal officials
issued a warrant for Fischer's
arrest. If arrested, he would have
to spend 10 years in jail and
fined $250,000. Early in
September, Fischer produced a
Treasury Department letter
ordering him not to play chess
with Boris Spassky and warning
of possible prosecution. In a
news conference in Sveti
Stevan, Yugoslavia, Fischer held
up the letter and spit at it. The
Federal government was also
trying to seize his winnings of
$3.35 million and 10 percent of
the match's royalties.

John Penquite (1935-2007) had

the highest chess rating ever
recorded by the United States
Chess Federation. In the 1990s
his correspondence rating was
2939 with a perfect 58-0-0 score
from correspondence play. He
won the Iowa State Chess
Championship 8 times between
1951 and 1973. (source: Chess
Life, April 1993, p. 36)

In 1993, a person was shot and

killed by a sniper while playing
chess in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
the first to die from sniper fire
while playing chess.

At the 1993 World Open in

Philadelphia, an unrated Black
newcomer wearing headphones
used the name "John von
Neumann" and scored 4½/9 in
the Open Section, including a
draw with a grandmaster and a
win over a 2350-rated player.
This player seemed to have a
suspicious bulge in one of his
pockets, which appeared to
make a soft humming or buzzing
sound at important points in the
game. When he was quizzed by
the tournament director, he was
unable to demonstrate even a
rudimentary knowledge of some
simple chess concepts, and he
was disqualified.

In 1994, at the Moscow Chess

Olympiad, the organizers
accidently posted two different
locations for the first round
between Bermuda and
Kyrgyzstan. One team sat down
at boards in one playing area,
and the other team sat down in
another area. Both teams waited
for the other team. After 40
minutes, someone discovered
the error and got the two teams
together in one playing area.

In 1994, during the Chess

Olympiad in Moscow, the
captain of the Irish chess team
was mugged in the street by a
gang of gypsy children and was
only saved by an old lady, who
waded into them with an
umbrella, to such effect that one
boy later required hospital
treatment! Another team captain
unwisely visited the local bank
to change several thousands of
dollars in foreign currency, only
for the bank, "coincidentally", to
be robbed at that very moment.

In 1994, Garry Kasparov made a

move and changed his move
against Judit Polgar after
momentarily letting go of a
piece. Kasparov went on to win
the game. The tournament
officials had videotape proving
that his hand left the piece, but
refused to release the video
evidence. A factor counting
against Polgar was that she
waited a whole day before
complaining, and such claims
must be made during the game.
The videotape revealed that
Kasparov did let go of the piece
for one quarter second.

In 1995, Alexander Ivanov

(1956- ) was playing in the U.S.
chess championship in Modesto,
California when he lost his first
round on time. After the first
round, he wife, Woman
International Master (WIM)
Esther Epstein (1954- ), arrived
to play in the Women's
championship. She told her
husband, "I don't care how you
lose, just don't lose on time!" It
worked. He won 6 games, lost
one (not on time) and tied for 1st
place in the U.S. chess
championship. Esther finished
3rd place in the women's
championship (she won it in
1991 and 1997). She also
refrained from telling her
husband that a fire had damaged
their apartment in Massachusetts
until after the tournament was
over.

In 1995, the band Phish played

chess with the audience while on
tour. Every venue they played a
new move would be made by
the band and a move made by
the audience. Usually, they had
two chess games going on at the
same time. The backdrop to the
stage was a giant chessboard
with pieces that could be moved.
The members of the band played
lots of chess on the bus while
touring.

On August 22, 1995, Gilles

Andruet (1958-1995), the 1988
French chess champion and
International Master (1982), was
murdered. His body was found
on the shores of the Yvette river
in Saulx-les-Chartreux. He had
been beaten to death and put in a
plastic bag over some gambling
debts. His father was the famous
ralley-car driver, Jean-Claude
Andruet.

In 1996, Yoko Ono (1933- )

donated $2,500 to enable the
Edward R. Murrow High School
chess team in Brooklyn, New
York, to attend the state and
national championships. The
school had been national
champions in 1992, 1993, and
1994, but had no funds in 1995
and 1996. The school won the
national championship in 2013,
their 8th time winning it (1992,
1993, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006,
2007, 2013). They have also
won 15 state titles and 16 city
championships. Yoko says she
plays chess almost every day.

In 1996, Essam Ahmed Ali

(1964-2003) won the Arab
Chess Championship. In 2003,
he won the Egyptian
championship. He was an
Egyptian International Master
and Egypt's top player, who died
on October 27, 2003, of cerebral
malaria after returning from the
All Africa Games tournament in
Abuja, 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.

In 1997, English Grandmaster

Tony Miles (1955-2001) was
playing the Croatian
grandmaster Davorin
Komljenovic in a Benasque
tournament. Miles as usual, put
his wrist watch aside on the
chess table. Komljenovic then
brought his big alarm clock and
put it also beside his board.
Miles protested, but
Komljenovic said that if Miles
has the right to put the watch, he
can put his big alarm clock.
Everyone was laughing, the
game went on, and later in a
drawn rook and pawn endgame
Miles lost the game.

In 1997, a Swedish tournament

was being held where the lots
(position number at the start of a
tournament) were on the
bottoms of gold bars. The chess
players were warned that the
gold bars were too heavy to be
picked up by one hand. Despite
the warning, Gary Kasparov
began flexing his right arm,
obviously determined to draw
his lot one-handed. He tried, but
failed and had to use both hands.
However, when it came to 60-
year-old strong man Lajos
Portisch (1937- ), he picked up
his gold bar one handed with no
apparent strain.

In 1997, British GM Nigel Short

was playing in a chess
tournament in the Russian city
of Novgorod. Just before the last
round, where he was supposed
to play Kasparov the next day,
Nigel decided to take a midnight
stroll down by the river.
Unfortunately, one of the locals
was also there, accompanied by
his Russian German shepherd.
The dog escaped from his owner
and attacked Nigel, biting both
of his arms as Nigel tried to fend
off the dog. The dozy owner
realized that his dog was
attacking someone and called
the dog off, but Nigel was badly
bitten and wasn't sure if the dog
had rabies. Nigel spent much of
the night in a Russian hospital,
an experience he later described
as worse than the attack itself.
The hospital was filthy and
unsanitary and he was told that
rabies was quite widespread
amongst dogs in Russia at that
time. Despite the trauma, Nigel
was able to draw against
Kasparov the next day.

In the late 1990s, Ray Charles

(1930-2004) and Willie Nelson
(1933- ) were both avid chess
players and they would play
chess between shows. Ray
seemed to always win and then,
one night, Willie figured it out
how to beat Ray. When asked,
"What did you tell him Willie?"
Willie responded, "I said, 'The
next time we play, can we turn
the lights on?'"

In October 1998, the 33rd Chess

Olympiad was held in Elista,
Russia (autonomous Republic of
Kalmykia). It was covered live
on the Internet. However, its
website homepage was attacked
by hackers. Anyone who logged
onto the website was greeted
with a black screen and a
message reading "hacked to
Kasparov." This may be the first
time a chess page was attacked
by hackers. There were no clues
as to the origin of the hacker.
The original website had to be
changed to
www.chessplanet.com.

In 1999, the FIDE World Chess

Championship was held in Las
Vegas. The format was a
knockout tournament of short
matches. The incumbent
champion, Anatoly Karpov, had
no special privileges and had to
play in the knockout event.
Karpov protested and refused to
play. Garry Kasparov and
Viswnathan Anand also refused
to play. Kasparov and Anand
had been negotiating a match for
the world title, but the match
never took place. Only three of
the top 15 reached the
quarterfinals. Kasparov called
three of the quarterfinalists
"tourists." The winner was
Alexander Khalifman (1966- ),
ranked 44th in the world at the
time. After the event, Khalifman
said, "Rating system works
perfectly for players who play
only in round robin closed
events. I think most of them are
overrated."

In 2002, Dutch Grandmaster

Loek van Wely was driving on
the autobahn heading for a chess
tournament in his brand new
Jaguar X. He lost control of the
vehicle and flipped the car over
while driving around 100 mph.
The car was totaled, but "Lucky
Loek" walked away with only a
mild concussion. This was the
third car he had totaled in 5
years. No one in the Netherlands
wants to be a passenger with van
Wely. (source: chessbase.com,
Nov 27, 2011)

In November 2003, the first

World Championship of
Chessboxing was held in
Amsterdam, won by Iepe
Rubingh (his opponent exceeded
the chess time limit). It attracted
over 800 people. The "sport"
was inspired by a 1992 comic
book called Froid Equateur,
written by Enki Bilai, that
portrays a chessboxing world
championship.

In 2003, GM Evgeny Agrest

(born in 1966) won a game from
world champion Ruslan
Ponomariov when Ponomariov's
cell phone rang during their
match in the European team
championship. A cell phone
ringing during a match is an
automatic disqualification.
Ironically, Agrest lost a game in
2004 when his cell phone rang
during the Swedish
championship.

In 2004, the 36th Chess

Olympiad was held in Calvia,
Spain (Ballaearic Islands). At
the closing ceremony, FIDE vice
president Zurab Azmaiparashvili
(1960- ) was beaten up, wrestled
to the floor, and dragged to jail
by a group of security agents
when he tried to go on stage to
give a chess award. He was
trying to inform FIDE officials
that the organizers had neglected
to award a prize named in honor
of Georgian former Women's
World Champion Nona
Gaprindashvili. Zurab and a
security agent (head-butted by
Zurab) both suffered injuries. He
was detained for 48 hours before
being released. The Spanish
police claimed he had conducted
himself in a way that provoked
the ire of the organizers and the
security personnel. No charges
were ever filed.

In 2006, Vladimir Kramnik and

Veselin Topalov played a world
championship match designed to
reunify the Classical World
Chess Championship (Kramnik)
with the FIDE World Chess
Championship (Topalov).
During the rest day before the
5th game, Topalov's team
complained the Kramnik was
using the bathroom too much,
implying that Kramnik might be
cheating and using computer
assistance. Kramnik thought it
was a lot of crap. The match's
appeals committee decided to
alleviate the complaints by
opening a common bathroom for
the two players, rather than
allowing each to have a private
bathroom. In response,
Kramnik's team said that
Kramnik would not continue the
match unless the agreed-upon
match conditions were upheld,
including his right to use the
bathroom as often as necessary.
Kramnik then forfeited game
five as he refused to play under
the decision of the appeal's
committee of one bathroom.
After game 5, the original
bathroom situation was
reinstated and the appeals
committee resigned. The match
ended in a draw, but Kramnik
won on rapid tiebreaks, 2.5 to
1.5. The event became known as
'toiletgate.'
In 2007, GM Farhad Tahirov
played in the 2006-2007
Hastings Chess Congress. After
the last round, having a couple
of hours to kill before the prize-
giving, he decided to take a walk
along the Hastings seafront.
Unfortunately, he passed by a
particularly dodgy pub,
frequented by various skinheads
and other charmers, several of
whom attacked and robbed him.
He lost almost 1,000 pounds in
cash, plus a mobile phone and
camera, as well as ending up in
hospital for treatment to his
injuries.

In late 2008, at the Chess

Olympiad, Vassily Ivanchuk
(1969- ) refused to take a drug
test after losing a game and then
reportedly stormed out of the
room in the conference center,
kicked a concrete pillar in the
lobby, pounded a countertop in
the cafeteria with his fists and
then vanished into the
coatroom.

In 2009, the 2nd Gedeon Barcza

Memorial was supposed to take
place in Budapest. Although the
first round was actually played
with 5 International Masters and
7 Grandmasters, it soon became
clear that the main organizer did
not have the money to play with
the hotel or the players. The
Ramada Resort Hotel, where the
players were staying and where
the tournament was held, never
received any money from the
organizer. On the second day,
the hotel decided to close the
playing hall. The hotel manager
said, "no money, no business."
All 12 chess players were
financially harmed and the top
GMs were still waiting for their
appearance fees. The organizer
blamed the situation on lost
potential sponsors.

World chess champion Vishy

Anand was in Switzerland with
his wife and she told him "I put
some of your stuff in the hotel
room safe — the code is very
easy to remember, it's 2706, so
you can take whatever you
need." Anand thought to himself
and said, "Well, 2706 is not
really a good Elo chess rating.
Normally it's rounded off to the
nearest 5 or 10." So he told his
wife that he couldn't see how he
could remember that. She
looked a bit shocked and then
she explained to him that the
27th of June (27/06) was their
anniversary.

In 2013, the World Junior

Championship was supposed to
have been played in Hatay,
Turkey, only 12 miles away
from the Syrian border. But the
Turkish Chess Federation
decided to move the event from
Hatay to Kocaeli, Turkey to
move it as far away from Syria
as possible due to the Syrian
civil war. Many federations had
already decided not to send their
players.

In 2015, Yasser Seirawan stated

that "Magnus [Carlsen] is going
to kick butt [at the 2015
Sinquefield Cup]. I think he was
generally embarrassed by what
happened in Norway. He's got
everything to prove and a huge
chip on his shoulder." Maurice
Ashely echoed that prediction,
saying, "Magnus came out of
Norway playing horribly. Now
he has a thirst for blood. He
could go 9-0, trying to erase that
memory! He's eager to prove
that he's the number one player,
so I can see Magnus owning this
event." The problem is that
Magnus did not win this event in
2015, did not play in 2016, and
did not win in 2017. In 2015,
Levon Aronian won the event,
scoring 13 tour points to 10 tour
point for Carlsen. In 2017,
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won
with 13 tour points. Carlsen and
Anand tied with 9 tour points.

Magnus Carlsen was considered

for a role in a Star Trek movie
(Star Trek 2), but couldn't get a
U.S. work permit in time. JJ
Abrams, the producer, wanted
Carlsen to play a role of a chess
player in the future.

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