Strangest Deaths of Chess Players
Jeremy Spinrad
The recent posts on Vera Menchik's death bring up the issue of which prominent
chess players have died in the strangest ways. Some at least somewhat unusual
deaths that I know of
Mrs. Stevenson, prominent British player, killed by an airplane propellor
Gilberg, suffocated on his pillow
St Amant, fell out of his carriage
There have been a number of random murders, but these strike me as a little less
strange (though if the prominent player had been killed when he was knifed by an
assassin when the assassin mistook him for the intended victim, that would
count).
What other nominees are there?
Jerry Spinrad
Jerzy
news:cvl5rm$p44$1...@news.vanderbilt.edu...
If you like such investigations look here :
http://tinyurl.com/4w6st
Jerzy
PeteCasso
No, thank you, but I don't take the honor.
Taylor Kingston
Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
> What other nominees are there?
A few nominees:
Ernest Morphy (1807-1874, father of Paul), who died from an infected
cut on his eye. The cut was inflicted by the brim of a hat, when Morphy
turned to speak to the person wearing it.
Rudolf Spielmann (1883-1942), who according to legend locked himself
in a room and starved himself to death. Very strange if true.
Lembit Oll (died 1999?), jumped from his 4th-floor apartment.
Georgy Agzamov (1954-1986), died from diving onto rocks in the Black
Sea near Sevastopol.
George Henry Mackenzie (1837-1891), morphine overdose.
Nicolas Rossolimo (1910-1975), fell down a flight of stairs.
Johannes Minckwitz (1843-1901), threw himself under a tram.
I got the last four from Andy Soltis' "Chess Lists" (2nd
edition, McFarland 2002), "The Odd Deaths of Nine Masters" pages
131-132. Most of the others he gives seem not too unusual (car
accidents, surgical complications, etc.). That book has many errors; I
can't vouch for the accuracy of the above.
Spam Scone
Taylor Kingston wrote:
> Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
> > What other nominees are there?
>
> A few nominees:
>
> Ernest Morphy (1807-1874, father of Paul), who died from an
infected
> cut on his eye. The cut was inflicted by the brim of a hat, when
Morphy
> turned to speak to the person wearing it.
That would be Alonzo Morphy, not Ernest. But while we are on the
subject of Morphy, I find this amusing:
http://www.brennansneworleans.com/royalstreet.html
Nowhere in the New Orleans French Quarter is there a building with a
more illustrious past than 417 Royal Street, the home of Brennan's
Restaurant. Located on the most elegant street of this historic
district and adjacent to some of the finest antique shops in the world,
Brennan's Restaurant has been a landmark on Royal Street since it first
opened on May 31, 1956.....
[In 1841] Judge Alonzo Morphy, a former state attorney general and a
member of Louisiana's high court, purchased the building.
Judge Morphy's son was Paul Charles Morphy, the celebrated American
chess master. Known around the world as a young genius, Paul Morphy was
only ten years old when he mastered the intricate game. He defeated
Europe's foremost chess champions, as newspapers touted his feat of
playing eight contestants at one time while blindfolded. Judge Morphy
even designed a huge chess board on the floor of one of the upstairs
rooms in the mansion for his son's pleasure.
The chess master, Paul Charles Morphy, died in his Royal Street home in
1884. In 1891, his brothers and sisters sold the mansion they had
inherited.
Neil BrennEn
Taylor Kingston
> That would be Alonzo Morphy, not Ernest.
Thanks for the correction, Neil. This seems to be my day for hastily
written, careless posts. Ernest was Paul's uncle (assuming I remember
that correctly!), not his father.
> Nowhere in the New Orleans French Quarter is there a building with a
> more illustrious past than 417 Royal Street, the home of Brennan's
> Restaurant.
Had the pleasure to eat there in 1965. Very good indeed. Had beef
bourguignon (assuming I remember it correctly). Read Frances Parkinson
Keyes' historical novel about Morphy, "The Chess Players," through much
of that trip.
Nick
> (snipped for space)
> What other nominees are there?
Carl Schlechter died on 27 December 1918, reportedly
of the effects of pneumonia and starvation.
His death was tragic, but it hardly was unusual in
the winter of 1918, just after the First World War.
The novel, "Carl Haffner's Love of the Draw" by
Thomas Glavinic (originally in German), is based
on Carl Schlechter's life.
--Nick
N. Silver
> Nicolas Rossolimo (1910-1975), fell down a flight of stairs.
At the end of the day, before closing his chess storefront in
Greenwich Village, Rossolimo would drown his sorrows
and with his with his wife guiding him, stagger home.
http://www.chess-poster.com/english/notes_and_facts/deaths_of_chess_players.htm
raylopez99
some stats (like the erroneous death of Lilienthal, Andrei) are wrong,
but that's chess for you. Didn't a guy named Winter make a living
exposing erroneous chess statistics?
RL
Abrahams, Gerald 1907.04.15 1980.03.15 72
Adams, Weaver 1901.04.28 1963.01.06 61
Agzamov, Georgy 1954.09.06 1986 31 fall from cliff
Alapin, Simon 1856.11.19 1923.07.15 66
Alatortsev, Vladimir 1909.05.14 1987 78
Albin, Adolf 1848.09.14 1920.02.01 71
Alekhine, Alexander 1892.10.31 1946.03.24 53 choked to death
Alexander, Conel 1909.04.19 1974.02.15 64
Allgaier, Johann 1763.06.19 1823.01.03 59 dropsy
Anderssen, Adolf 1818.07.06 1879.03.13 60 heart attack
Atkins, Henry 1872.08.20 1955.01.31 82
Bagirov, Vladimir 1936.08.16 2000.07.21 63 heart attack - playing
chess in Finland
Balinas, Rosendo 1941.09.10 1998.09.24 57 cancer - liver
Barcza, Gedeon 1911.08.21 1986.02.27 74
Bardeleben, Curt von 1861.03.04 1924.01.31 62 suicide - jumped
Barnes, Thomas 1825 1874.08.20 49 weight loss
Benjamin, Alan 1934 2001 67 heart attack
Bernstein, Osip 1882.10.02 1962.11.30 80
Bird, Henry 1830.07.14 1908.04.11 77
Blackburne, Joseph 1841.12.10 1924.09.01 82 heart attack
Bloodgood, Claude 1924.07.14. 2001.08.04 77 cancer - lung
Boden, Samuel 1826.04.04 1882.01.13 55 typhoid fever
Bogoljubow, Efim 1889.04.14 1952.06.18 63 heart attack - playing
chess
Boi, Paolo 1528 1598 70 poisoned
Bolbochan, Julio 1920.03.20 1996.06.28 76
Boleslavsky, Isaak 1919.06.09 1977.02.15 57
Bondarevsky, Igor 1913.05.12 1979.06.14 66
Botvinnik, Mikhail 1911.08.17 1995.05.05 83 cancer
Bourdonnais, Louis 1795 1840.12.13 45 stroke; dropsy
Breyer, Gyula 1893.04.30 1921.11.09 28 heart disease
Buckle, Henry 1821.11.24 1862.05.29 40 typhoid fever
Burn, Amos 1848.12.31 1925.11.25 76
Byrne, Donald 1930.06.12 1976.04.08 45
Calvo, Ricardo 1943.10.22 2002.09.26 59 cancer - esophagus
Canal, Esteban 1896.04.19 1981.02.14 84
Capablanca, Jose 1888.11.19 1942.03.08 53 heart attack
Carrera, Pietro 1573.01.12 1647.09.18 74
Charousek, Rudolf 1873.09.19 1900.04.18 26 tuberculosis
Chernev, Irving 1900.01.29 1981.09.29 81
Chigorin, Mikhail 1850.11.12 1908.01.25 57 diabetes
Ciocaltea, Victor 1932.01.16 1983.09.10 51
Cochrane, John 1798.02.04 1878.03.02 80
Colle, Edgar 1897.05.18 1932.04.20 34 operation for ulcer
Collins, John 1912.09.23 2001.12.02 89
Dake, Arthur 1910.04.08 2000.05.02 90 died in his sleep in
Portland, Oregon
de Vere, Cecil 1845.02.14 1875.02.09 29 tuberculosis
del Rio, Ercole 1720 1800 80
Denker, Arnold 1914.02.20 2005.01.02 90 brain cancer
Deschapelles, Alex 1780.03.07 1847.10.27 67 hydropsy
Donner, Jan 1927.07.06 1988.11.27 61
Duras, Oldrich 1882.10.30 1957.01.05 74
Edmundson, Ed 1920.08.13 1982.10.21 62 heart attack - playing chess
Eliskases, Erich 1913.02.15 1997.02.02 83
Elo, Arpad 1903.08.25 1992.11.05 89
Englisch, Berthold 1851.07.09 1897.10.19 46
Euwe, Max 1901.05.20 1981.11.26 80 heart attack
Fine, Reuben 1914.10.11 1993.03.281993 78
Flesch, Janso 1933.09.30 1983.12.09 50 car wreck
Flohr, Salo 1908.11.21 1983.07.18 74
Furman, Semen 1920.12.01 1978.03.17 57
Garcia, Guillermo 1953.12.09 1990.10.26 36 car wreck
Geller, Efim 1925.03.02 1998.11.17 73 cancer
Gipslis, Aivars 1937.02.08 2000.04.14 63 stroke while playing chess
in Berlin
Golombek, Harry 1911.03.01 1995.01.07 83
Graf-Stevenson, Sonja 1914.12.16 1965.03.06 50
Greco, Gioacchino 1600 1634 34
Gresser, Kahn 1906.02.08 2000.12.04 94 died in Manhattan
Grigorian, Karen 1947.09.07 1989 42 suicide - jumped
Grigoriev, Nikolai 1895.08.14 1938.11.10 43 appendicitis
Grunfeld, Ernst 1893.11.21 1962,04.03 68
Gufeld, Eduard 1936.03.19 2002 66 stroke
Gunsberg, Isidor 1854.11.02 1930.05.02 75
Harrwitz, Daniel 1823.04.29 1884.01.09 60
Helms, Hermann 1870.01.05 1963.01.06 93
Hooper, David 1915.08.31 1998.05.03 82
Horowitz, Al 1907.11.15 1973.01.18 65
Horwitz, Bernhard 1807.05.10 1885.08.29 77
Ilyin-Genevsky, A. 1894.11.28 1941.09.03 46 shelled
Jaenisch, Carl 1813.08.23 1872.03.17 58
Janowsky, Dawid 1868.06.07 1927.01.15 58 tuberculosis
Junge, Klaus 1924.01.01 1945.04.17 21 shot in WW II
Karff, Mona 1914.10.20 1998.01.10 83 died in Manhattan
Kashdan, Isaac 1905.11.19 1985.02.20 79
Kasparyan, Genrikh 1910.02.27 1995.12.17 85
Keres, Paul 1916.01.07 1975.06.05 59 heart attack
Kieseritzky, Lionel 1806.01.01 1853.05.18 47
Kmoch, Hans 1894.07.25 1973.02.13 78
Kogan, Boris 1940.02.08 1993.12.25 53
Kolisch, Ignatz 1837.04.06 1889.04.30 52
Koltanowski, George 1903.09.17 2000.02.05 96 heart failure; San
Francisco
Korn, Walter 1908.05.22 1997.07.10 89 died in Burlingame, CA
Kostic, Boris 1887.02.24 1963.11.03 76 blood poisoning from a
scratch
Kotov, Alexander 1913.08.12 1981.01.08 67
Kubbel, Arvid 1889.09.12 1942 53 executed by firing squad
Landau, Salo 1903.04.01 1943.11.15 40 gassed in concentration camp
Lasa, Tassilo von der 1818.10.17 1899.07.27 80
Lasker, Ed 1885.12.03 1981.03.23 95
Lasker, Emanuel 1868.12.24 1941.01.11 72 heart attack
Legall, Sire de 1702 1792 90
Leonardo, Giovanni 1542 1587 45
Leonhardt, Paul 1877.11.13 1934.12.14 57 heart attack - playing
chess
Levenfish, Grigory 1889.03.09 1961.02.09 71
Lewis, William 1787.10.09 1870.08.22 82
Lilienthal, Andrei 1911.05.05 1997 86
Lim, Kok 1920.01.27 2003.03.08 83 died in Singapore
Lolli, Giambattista 1698 1769.06.04 71
Lopez, Ruy 1530 1580 50
Lowenthal, Johann 1810.07.15 1876.07.21 66
Loyd, Sam 1841.01.30 1911.04.10 70
Lucena, Luis 1497 1530 33
Lutikov, Anatoly 1933.02.05 1989.10.15 56
Mackenzie, George 1837.03.24 1891.04.14 54 suicide - morphine
overdose
Makogonov, Vladimir 1904.08.27 1993 89
Maroczy, Geza 1870.03.03 1951.05.29 81
Marshall, Frank 1877.08.10 1944.11.09 67 heart attack
Mason, James 1849.11.19 1905.01.15 54
McDonnell, Alexander 1798.05.22 1835.09.14 37 Bright's disease
Mednis, Edmar 1937.03.22 2002.02.13 64 pneumonia; cardiac arrest
Menchik, Vera 1906.02.16 1944.06.26 38 bombing raid
Mieses, Jacques 1865.02.27 1954.02.23 88
Miles, Tony 1955.04.23 2001.11.12 46 heart failure; diabetes
Milic, Borislav 1925.10.20 1986.05.27 60
Milner-Barry, Philip 1906.09.20 1995.03.25 88
Minckwitz, Hans 1843.04.11 1901.05.20 58 suicide - hit by train
Monticelli, Mario 1902.03.16 1995.06.30 93
Morphy, Paul 1837.06.22 1884.07.10 47 stroke
Muir, Walter 1905.08.07 1999.12.29 94
Najdorf, Miguel 1910.04.15 1997.07.04 87 heart attack
Neumann, Gustav 1838.12.15 1881.02.16 42
Nimzovich, Aaron 1886.11.07 1935.03.16 48 pneumonia
O'Kelly, Alberic 1911.05.17 1980.10.03 69
Oll, Lembit 1964.11.07 1999 35 suicide - jumped
Ostojic, Predrag 1938.02.22 1996.07.05 58
Pachman, Ludek 1924.05.11 2003.03.06 78
Paulsen, Louis 1833.01.15 1891.08.18 58 diabetes
Perlis, Julius 1880.01.19 1913.09.11 33 fall from mountain in Alps
Petroff, Alexander 1794.02.12 1867.04.22 73
Petrosian, Tigran 1929.06.17 1984.08.13 55 cancer
Petrov, Vladimir 1908 1943 35 died in a prison camp
Philidor, Francois 1726.09.07 1795.08.31 68
Pillsbury, Harry 1872.12.05 1906.06.17 33 syphillis
Pilnik, Herman 1914.01.08 1981.11.12 67
Pirc, Vasja 1907.12.19 1980.06.02 72
Polerio, Giulio 1548 1612 64
Polugayevsky, Lev 1934.11.20 1995.08.30 60
Ponziani, Domenico 1719.11.09 1796.07.15 76
Przepiorka, David 1880.12.22 1940.04.15 59 gassed in concentration
camp
Purdy, Cecil 1906.03.27 1979.11.06 73 heart attack - playing chess
Rabinovich, Abram 1878 1943.11.07 65 starvation
Ragozin, V. 1908.10.08 1962.03.11 53
Reinfeld, Fred 1910.01.27 1964.05.29 54
Reshevsky, Samuel 1911.11.26 1992.04.04 80 heart attack
Reti, Richard 1889.05.28 1929.06.06 40 scarlet fever
Robatsch, Karl 1928.10.14 2000.09.19 71 cancer - stomach and throat
Rossolimo, Nicholas 1910.02.28 1975.07.24 65 fall from stairs
Rubinstein, Akiba 1882.10.12 1961.03.15 78
Rubtsova, Olga 1909.08.20 1994 85
Rudenko, Liudmila 1904.07.27 1986.03.05 81
Saint-Amant, Pierre 1800.09.12 1872.10.29 72
Saemisch, Fritz 1896.09.20 1975.08.16 78
Salvio, Alessandro 1570 1640 70
Sarratt, Jacob 1772 1819.11.06 37
Schiffers, Emanuel 1850.05.04 1904.12.12 54
Schlechter, Carl 1874.03.02 1918.12.27 44 starvation; pneumonia
Showalter, Jackson 1860.02.05 1935.02.05 75
Simagin, Vladimir 1919.06.21 1968.09.25 49 heart attack
Smith, Ken 1930.09.13 1999 68
Spielmann, Rudolf 1883.05.05 1942.08.20 59
St Amant, Pierre 1800.09.12 1872.10.29 72 fall from carriage
Stahlberg, Gideon 1908.01.261908 1967.05.26 59 heart attack
Stamma, Phillp 1710 1770 60
Staunton, Howard 1810 1874.06.22 64 heart attack
Stein, Leonid 1934.11.12 1973.07.04 38 heart attack
Steiner, Herman 1905.04.15 1955.11.25 50 heart attack
Steinitz, William 1836.05.17 1900.08.12 64
Stoltz, Gosta 1904.05.09 1963.07.25 59
Suetin, Alexei 1926.11.16 2001/09.10 74 heart attack after a chess
tournament
Sultan Khan, Mir 1905 1966.04.25 61
Szabo, Laszlo 1917.03.19 1998.08.08 81
Tal, Mikhail 1936.11.09 1992.06.28 55 kidney failure
Tarrasch, Siegbert 1862.03.05 1934.02.17 71
Tartakower, Saviely 1887.02.21 1956.02.05 68
Teichmann, Richard 1868.12.24 1925.06.12 56
Tolush, Alexander 1910.05.01 1969.03.03 58
Torre, Carlos 1905.11.23 1978.03.19 72
Trifunovic, Petar 1910.08.31 1980.12.08 70
Troitzky, Alexei 1866.03.14 1942.08.15 76 starvation
Turner, Abe 1924 1962.10.25 38 stabbed to death
van Scheltinga, Theo 1914.03.06 1994.07.30 80
Vidmar, Milan 1885.06.22 1962.10.09 77
Vitolins, Edvins 1938 1997 59 suicide - jumped
Vukcevich, Milan 1937.03.11 2003.05.10 66
Vyzmanavin, Alexei 1960 2000 40
Walker, George 1803.03.13 1879.04.23 76
Weiss, Max 1857.07.21 1927.03.14 69
Winawer, Simon 1838.03.05 1920.01.12 81
Yanovsky, Daniel 1925.03.26 2000.03.05 74 cancer
Yates, Frederick 1884.01.16 1932.11.11 48 gas leak in house
(suicide?)
Zaitsev, Alexander 1935.06.15 1971.10.31 36 thrombosis
Znosko-Borovsky, E. 1884.08.28 1954.12.31 70
Zukertort, Johannes 1842.09.07 1888.06.20 45 stroke
Steve Grant
news:1109538604....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Here is what I found from an expired but cached internet site. I think
> some stats (like the erroneous death of Lilienthal, Andrei) are wrong,
> but that's chess for you. Didn't a guy named Winter make a living
> exposing erroneous chess statistics?
>
> RL
>
You left out Peter Leko.
Leopold
by Bill Wall
Georgy Agzamov (1954-1986) - Russian GM fell between some rocks at a beach
and died
Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) - choked to death on a piece of meat in 1946
Johann Allgaier (1763-1823) - dropsy
Adolf Anderssen (1818-1879) - heart attack
Vladimir Bagirov (1936-2000) - heart attack while playing chess in Finland
Rosendo Balinas (1941-1998) - liver cancer
Curt von Bardeleben (1861-1924) - threw himself out the window of his
boarding home at age 63
Thomas Barnes (1825-1874) - too much weight loss at one time
Joseph Blackburne (1841-1924) - heart attack
Claude Bloodgood (1924-2001) - lung cancer while in prison for life
Samuel Boden (1826-1882) - died of typhoid fever
Efim Bogoljubov (1889-1952) - suffered a heart attack after a simultaneous
display
Paolo Boi (1528-1598) - poisoned (murdered) in Naples
Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995) - cancer
Louis Bourdonnais (1795-1840) - stroke
Gyula Breyer (1893-1921) - heart disease
Henry Buckle (1821-1862) - typhoid fever
Ricardo Calvo (1943-2002) - esophagus cancer
Jose Capablanca (1888-1942) - died after watching a skittles game at the
Manhattan Chess Club in 1942.
Rudolf Charousek (1873-1900) - tuberculosis
Mikhail Chigorin (1850-1908) - diabetes
Edgar Colle (1897-1932) - died after an operation for a gastric ulcer
Arthur Dake (1910-2000) - died in his sleep at age 90
Cecil de Vere (1845-1875) - tuberculosis
A. Deschapelles (1780-1847) - hydropsy
Ed Edmundson (1920-1982) - died of a heart attack while playing chess on a
beach in Hawaii
Max Euwe (1901-1981) - heart attack
Janos Flesch (1933-1983) - died in a car wreck in England
Guillermo Garcia (1953-1990) - car wreck
Efim Geller (1925-1998) - cancer
Aivars Gipslis (1937-2000) - stroke while playing chess in Berlin
Karen Grigorian (1947-1989) - suicide by jumping
Nikolai Grigoriev (1895-1938) - appendicitis
Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002) - stroke
Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky (1894-1941) - died in the siege of Leningrad while
on a barge
Dawid Janowsky (1868-1927) - tuberculosis
Klaus Junge - German army officer killed in action in 1945.
Paul Keres (1916-1975) - died of a heart attack returning home from a
tournament in 1975.
George Koltanowski (1903-2000) - heart failure at the age of 93
Boris Kostic (1887-1963) - blood poisoning from a scratch
Nikolai Krylenko - executed in Stalin's purges in 1938.
Leonid Kubbel (1891-1942) - executed by firing squad in Leningrad
Salo Landau (1903-1944) - gassed by Nazis at a German concentration camp
Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) - heart attack
Paul Leonhardt (1877-1934) - died of a heart attack while playing chess at a
chess club in 1934.
George Mackenzie (1837-1891) - suicide: took an overdose of morphine
Frank Marshall (1877-1944) - died of a heart attack after leaving a chess
tournament
Alexander McDonnell (1798-1835) - died of Bright's disease
Edmar Mednis (1937-2002) - pneumonia and cardiac arrest
Vera Menchik (1906-1944) - died in the German bombing of London
Tony Miles (1955-2001) - died in his sleep at age 46; he was diabetic
Johannes Minckwitz (1843-1901) - suicide: threw himself under a train
Paul Morphy (1837-1884) - died of a stroke while taking a cold bath
Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997) - heart attack
Aron Nimzovich (1886-1935) - died of pneumonia
Lembit Oll - suicide by jumping out of the window of his 4th story apartment
Louis Paulsen (1833-1891) - died of diabetes
Julius Perlis (1880-1913) - died in a mountain climb in the Alps in 1913.
Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984) - cancer
Vladimir Petrov (1908-1943) - died in a prison camp in Russia
Harry Pillsbury (1872-1906) - died of syphillis
David Przepiorka (1880-1940) - died in a mass execution outside Warsaw in
1940.
Cecil Purdy (1906-1979) - died of a heart attack while playing chess
Abram Rabinovich (1878-1943) - starvation
Samuel Reshevsky (1911-1992) - heart attack
Richard Reti (1889-1929) - died of scarlet fever
Karl Robatsch (1928-2000) - stomach and throat cancer
Nicholas Rossolimo (1910-1975) - fell from flight of stairs; died of head
injuries
Pierre Saint-Amant (1800-1872) - died after a fall from his carriage
Carl Schlechter (1874-1918) - died from pneumonia and starvation
Vladimir Simagin (1919-1968) - died of a heart attack while playing in a
tournament
Gideon Stahlberg (1908-1967) - heart attack during the 1967 Leningrad
International tournament.
Howard Staunton (1810-1874) - died of a heart attack will writing a chess
book
Leonid Stein (1934-1973) - heart attack
Herman Steiner (1905-1955) - heart attack after a California State
Championship game
Alexei Suetin (1926-2001) - heart attack after a chess tournament
Mikhail Tal (1936-1992) - kidney failure
Mikhail Tchigorin (1850-1908) - died of diabetes
Karel Treybal - died a victim of the Nazis in 1941.
Alexi Troitzky (1866-1942) - died of starvation during the siege of
Leningrad
Abe Turner (1924-1962) - stabbed 9 times in the back by a fellow employee at
the Chess Review office
Alvis Vitolins (1938-1997) - suicide by jumping
Daniel Yanovsky (1925-2000) - cancer
Frederick Yates (1884-1932) - died in his sleep from a leak in a faulty gas
pipe connection
Alexander Zaitsev - died of thrombosis as a consequence of a leg operation
in 1971.
Johann Zukertort (1842-1888) - died of a stroke while playing chess at a
London coffee-house
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) - committed suicide.
"Jeremy Spinrad" <sp...@vuse.vanderbilt.edu> wrote in message
news:cvl5rm$p44$1...@news.vanderbilt.edu...
>
Chess One
"> Ricardo Calvo (1943-2002) - esophagus cancer
was it? his book was a sober one, like a man drowning in the complexities of
it all, but still wanting to find the centre of the weir, his own heart?
> Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) - committed suicide.
another chess writer.
is it recorded how many masters died during the siege of St Petersburg - did
I read somewhere that the number was 20?
phil
David Richerby
> Jose Capablanca (1888-1942) - died after watching a skittles game at the
> Manhattan Chess Club in 1942.
Let that be a warning to us all.
> Ed Edmundson (1920-1982) - died of a heart attack while playing chess on
> a beach in Hawaii
Now that sounds like pretty much the perfect way to go. :-)
Dave.
--
David Richerby Lead Windows (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ graphical user interface that weighs
a ton!
Nick
> (snipped for space)
> is it recorded how many masters died during the siege of
> St Petersburg - did I read somewhere that the number was 20?
Would Phil Innes ('Chess One') like to play the 'St Petersburg
Variation' (Leningrad Variation) of the Dutch Defence?
Or the 'Serbian-Montenegrin Attack' (Yugoslav Attack) in the
Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence?
The siege of Leningrad took place for about 900 days in 1941-44.
Given that perhaps one million or more civilians died during that
siege, I doubt that anyone *then* was much interested in recording
whether or not someone who died had been a chess master or not.
After the war, however, it's possible that someone did make an
effort to discover how many of Leningrad's prewar chess masters
were still alive and thereby infer how many of them had died in
the war, not necessarily in Leningrad.
'Nikto ne zabyt. Nichto ne zabyto.'
('Let no one forget. Let nothing be forgotten.')
--Olga Berggolts (1910-1975)
Olga Berggolts was a poet who survived the siege of Leningrad, when
she often made radio broadcasts to encourage her fellow Leningraders.
Her words (above) appear in stone at the Piskaryevskoye Cemetary.
'Smert fasizmu, svoboda narodu.'
--Nick
Chess One
"Nick" <nickbo...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1109716871.6...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Chess One wrote:
>> (snipped for space)
>> is it recorded how many masters died during the siege of
>> St Petersburg - did I read somewhere that the number was 20?
>
> Would Phil Innes ('Chess One') like to play the 'St Petersburg
> Variation' (Leningrad Variation) of the Dutch Defence?
> Or the 'Serbian-Montenegrin Attack' (Yugoslav Attack) in the
> Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence?
Would I indeed?
> The siege of Leningrad took place for about 900 days in 1941-44.
>
> Given that perhaps one million or more civilians died during that
> siege, I doubt that anyone *then* was much interested in recording
> whether or not someone who died had been a chess master or not.
I also doubt it, but then again, someone has done so.
It is interesting that such a thing would be any matter of record
considering the circumstances, and I belive the compiler did it relatively
recently [the last 20 years?]. I remember writing something about the
'neglect' of Alekhine after the war ended, and in an otehrwise heated debate
among people over what was fair or otherwise, I wrote that the inhabitants
of the British isles were almost as starved as the Germans - no-one had seen
a piece of fruit for 5 years, and in fact rationing continued until 1951.
How would these people care for a Russian emigree who sat out the war in
Portugal?
I was surprised by a message from Arnold Denker who wrote, "yes, it was so",
and I think this perspective on the fortunes of our rather obscure game is
worth repeating.
> After the war, however, it's possible that someone did make an
> effort to discover how many of Leningrad's prewar chess masters
> were still alive and thereby infer how many of them had died in
> the war, not necessarily in Leningrad.
Yes - I belive there is a list of them.
> 'Nikto ne zabyt. Nichto ne zabyto.'
> ('Let no one forget. Let nothing be forgotten.')
> --Olga Berggolts (1910-1975)
It is interesting; a friend in Petersburg wrote in Latin, bis peccare in
bello non licet -- and I think his sense, context, of 'mistake' is a comment
about war itself
> Olga Berggolts was a poet who survived the siege of Leningrad, when
> she often made radio broadcasts to encourage her fellow Leningraders.
> Her words (above) appear in stone at the Piskaryevskoye Cemetary.
>
> 'Smert fasizmu, svoboda narodu.'
I am afraid my Russian is much restricted to chess-Russian, Blok, Akhmatova,
Dostoyevski and Zamyatin ~ uyezd!
do svidanya, phil
> --Nick
>
Vladimir Swordless
well. The Mrs Stevenson that was cut dead by a propeller was Agnes,
first wife of RHS Stevenson; he later married Vera.
Sonja Graf also became a Mrs Stevenson, but that was in the US.
JAJ Drewitt died of falling out of a train. He assumed it was a
corridor one, but it wasn't. Hartston has it that a Soviet GM died
following an operation on his foot. I forget the details now. Details
in Golombek's Encyclopaedia.
James Pratt (Basingstoke!)
Spam Scone
Vladimir Swordless wrote:
> Vera Menchik died at home in Kent according to Golombek, who knew her
> well.
We've been discussing this here. Or more properly, if Kent can be
considered part of London.
The Mrs Stevenson that was cut dead by a propeller was Agnes,
> first wife of RHS Stevenson; he later married Vera.
>
> Sonja Graf also became a Mrs Stevenson, but that was in the US.
> JAJ Drewitt died of falling out of a train. He assumed it was a
> corridor one, but it wasn't. Hartston has it that a Soviet GM died
> following an operation on his foot. I forget the details now. Details
> in Golombek's Encyclopaedia.
>
>
> James Pratt (Basingstoke!)
http://www.chessvariants.org/other.dir/ruddigore-chess.html
"Shall I tell you one of poor Mad Margaret's odd thoughts? Well, then,
when I am lying awake at night, and the pale moonlight streams through
the latticed casement, strange fancies crowd upon my poor mad brain,
and I sometimes think that if we could hit upon some word for you to
use whenever I am about to relapse, some word that teems with hidden
meaning, like "Basingstoke", it might recall me to my saner self." -
W. S. Gilbert, Ruddigore
Nick
> Vladimir Swordless wrote:
> > Vera Menchik died at home in Kent according to Golombek,
> > who knew her well.
>
> We've been discussing this here. Or more properly,
> if Kent can be considered part of London.
A part of Kent today has been 'considered part of London'.
But most of Kent never has been 'considered part of London'.
Does anyone here know *exactly* (the address of her house)
where Vera Menchik Stevenson died in 1944?
--Nick
Bugsy
Norman Bates
> >
Vladimir Swordless
47 Gaudin Road, Clapham, London.
Not Kent; thanks for the G&S quotation.
David Richerby
> "Nick" <nickbo...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Does anyone here know *exactly* (the address of her house)
>> where Vera Menchik Stevenson died in 1944?
>
What's your source for this?
Dave.
--
David Richerby Aluminium Beer (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ refreshing lager that's really light!