Violence on the chessboard

[Joey Stewart]

I was reading something amusing about how korchnoi used to like to give his opponents a good kick under the table and it got me thinking that, other then a few angry post match words I have never seen any players come to blows over a game of chess (not even in primary school contests!).

Made me wonder if anyone from the forum has any tales of chess altercations that turned physical ?

[John McKenna]

A case before the London court, in year 1254, concerned Wiliiam de Wendene who had killed his opponent during a quarrel related to chess...

New York, 1960, a sailor killed a spectator who criticized his play in a chess game.

[MJMcCready]

The Complete Chess Addict is where to go for that stuff. I remember something about Blackburne punching someone through a window, and some notable football hooligan in London decked someone during a game. But Richard James knows this better than I.

[MJMcCready]

Oh, and allegedly, old King Canute wanted to take a move back once but when his opponent refused he promptly had him murdered -as you do!

[Matt Mackenzie]

The Complete Chess Addict is where to go for that stuff. I remember something about Blackburne punching someone through a window, and some notable football hooligan in London decked someone during a game. But Richard James knows this better than I.

Happened to no less a person than Steinitz, allegedly. Though this is a tale that one Edward Winter is notably dubious about.

[MJMcCready]

At my club we had a funny incident once. A member brought his electric guitar and amp down, this did not go down well so one member told him to step outside, and they had a good scrap whilst rolling around in the snow.

[Richard Thursby]

[With apologies for being cryptic]

I believe my club president (who may have co-authored a book mentioned earlier in the thread, where this story is possibly told) has a story of how his late predecessor as club president was involved in an altercation with his opponent during a Thames Valley League match sometime in the 1970s/80s. The two players concerned met again in the same league some decades later, they did not repeat the antics and played out a fairly tame draw, so I understand.

[Richard James]

[With apologies for being cryptic]

I believe my club president (who may have co-authored a book mentioned earlier in the thread, where this story is possibly told) has a story of how his late predecessor as club president was involved in an altercation with his opponent during a Thames Valley League match sometime in the 1970s/80s. The two players concerned met again in the same league some decades later, they did not repeat the antics and played out a fairly tame draw, so I understand.

This is indeed true, although it's possible the authors might have slightly exaggerated the incident for comic effect.

These days there are some who disapprove of this sort of thing. There are even, believe it or not, a few book reviewers who get very angry when they read a sentence like "Alekhine destroyed every stick of furniture in his hotel room, in a near psychotic rage".

[Michael Farthing]

Right! Got all that. (Not!)
(Just for the benefit of other dim-witted individuals like me - and rather hoping there are some).

[Matt Mackenzie]

Alekhine behaved thus after *that* loss to Yates, supposedly.

AAA is also alleged to have resigned a game against Gruenfeld by hurling his K across the tournament room. Though that one at least had witnesses, and it seems likely that he resigned in a bad temper even if the story has "gained in the telling" as is so often the case.

[Leonard Barden]

These days there are some who disapprove of this sort of thing. There are even, believe it or not, a few book reviewers who get very angry when they read a sentence like "Alekhine destroyed every stick of furniture in his hotel room, in a near psychotic rage".

Is there the slightest evidence that this oft-repeated story from his game against Yates at Carlsbad 1923 is true? Or of a similar tale, which I read with much accompaning detail decades ago written by Edmond Lancel in I think L'Echiquer Belge, that Alekhine tried to kill himself with a knife to the stomach just before Vienna 1922, resulting in a slightly sub-normal tournament performance?

The Carlsbad tale, repeated so casually by anecdote-eager writers, has actually had the effect of diminishing Yates's victory in a truly beaufiful game, which Emanuel Lasker witnessed and singled out for praise after Yates's death.

[John Clarke]

About forty years ago now, a certain match captain once "decked" his top-board player, not just for losing but apparently for not making enough of an effort at all in what I believe was a needle match. The perpetrator told me about this himself, a couple of years or so afterwards. One party to the incident is now deceased and the other nearly if not actually so, but I'd better withhold the names nonetheless.

" .... a testy cholericke game and very offensive to him that looseth the mate.” (Robert Burton, The Anatomy Of Melancholy, 1621)

Anglo-American author Gerald Kersh - not to be regarded as a reliable source - once told of a violent encounter over a blindfold game. See Edward Winter's article Chess And Ghosts here and scroll about half-way down. (Sorry, can't seem to find a more direct path to the extract.)

[Ian Thompson]

One party to the incident is now deceased and the other nearly if not actually so, but I'd better withhold the names nonetheless.

A Google search against the perpetrator's name reveals a couple of websites reporting an unclaimed estate for someone with the right name and place of residence who died on 10 April this year.

[Joey Stewart]

Sounds like you might have just made John a rich man... I'm assuming chess team mates would qualify for inheritance in place of blood relatives?

[Neil Graham]

Sounds like you might have just made John a rich man... I'm assuming chess team mates would qualify for inheritance in place of blood relatives?

Sorry no. The estate of the late Bruce Birchall was the subject of an episode of Heir Hunters and whilst chess was featured it didn't benefit.

See viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3627&hilit=birchall