English Chess Forum

Just stumbled across this...

https://www.ichess.net/blog/chess-players-arrested/

You can add Pindar to the list, plus James Mason. Will be interesting to see which names others come up with other than Nazi and Soviet cases.

Very interesting collection.

Number of cases of people being arrested for gambling while playing chess, including a Cleveland tournament organiser. That sounds like a story where more details would be welcome. (Edit: this is Cleveland Ohio).

In a U.S. case:

Five years later, he received a $1 million settlement in a false arrest suit against New York City as the judge ruled that a chess game was not “gambling” since it was a game of skill rather than chance and the chess board was not “gambling equipment.”

Of course if you play as I do the gambling element may be so high as to make the charges stick.

W Ritson Morry ended up going to jail, so he is an obvious one not listed.

A few extra cases and greater detail available at:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/murder.html

Biggest omission I spotted was the Wallace case: https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/wallace.html

The list concentrates on U.S. cases.

see Question 31 of the Kenilworth Christmas Quiz.
https://kenilworthchess.blogspot.com/

There's also the longish thread in the Orbituary section.

I'll add Louis van Vliet and J. J. O'Hanlon.

From the March 1952 issue of "Chess" magazine - I did a bit of research on him, but couldn't find any details of whether he was subsequently convicted on the second charge. Apparently his correspondence chess was curtailed when he was hospitalized due to an accident in a failed escape attempt - in the hospital he was only permitted one letter a month!

I found one of his studies. White to mate in 2. In many problems of this nature White has multiple ways to win, so the challenge is simply to find the mate in 2. But in this problem White is totally lost unless he finds the mate in 2.

Was John N. Walker (Oxford) arrested or did he hand himself in?
Same question applies to ex-Reverend Howard Curtis.
I think there was a English chap (whose name I do know) arrested in Norway at a tournament caught in a toilet cubicle with a young man. He is also a poker player.
Should John Healey be on the list?
What about Hilary C. Thomas?
There must a number of English chess players we can all name who are not on the list who have either been arrested and / or spent time at Her Majesties pleasure.
Richard James has reminded me of Andrew Tate whose name will also go onto the list.
No Pike so far.

Howard Curtis was arrested. Don't know about Walker.

At least one GM has been arrested and imprisoned because he killed someone. He used to train with Fischer also.

Tony Miles got arrested too.

A F Stammwitz (one-time BCF General Secretary) - for bigamy.

And of course Matulovic, who served some jail time for "vehicular manslaughter" c1970.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 10:13 pm

I think there was a English chap (whose name I do know) arrested in Norway at a tournament caught in a toilet cubicle with a young man. He is also a poker player.

Do you mean Czechia and contract bridge?

I do know of an English player who was arrested at a Moscow brothel (presumably a KGB honeytrap) in the 1950s who had to be sent emergency bail money by the then BCF. The affair was mightily hushed up at the time.