Chess-related deaths
Encyclopedia
As with most games that have a long history, chess
has been associated with a number of anecdote
s, and some relate to games that have resulted in the death of one of the players involved. The reliability of many of these anecdotes is suspect, but some appear to be based on fact.
(1616) by Augustus, Duke of Lüneburg
, who claimed to have obtained it from an old Bavarian Chronicle, then in the library of Marcus Welsor but now lost. The anecdote states that Okarius (also spelt Okar or Otkar), the prince of Bavaria
, had a son of great promise residing at the Court of King Pippin
. One day Pippin's son was playing chess with the young Prince of Bavaria, and became so enraged at repeatedly losing that he hit the prince on the temple with one of his rooks and killed him on the spot. This anecdote is repeated in another Bavarian Chronicle, and in a work by Metellus of Tegernsee about Saint Quirin and other documents refer to his death while at Pippin's court.
(c. 994
–1035) of Denmark
, England and Norway
, is said to have ordered an earl killed after a disagreement about a chess game. By one account, the king made an illegal move that angered Earl Ulf, who knocked over the board and stormed off, after which the king sent someone to kill him.
commissioned a peasant or minister to create a strategy game
of surpassing quality. Pleased with the result, the king asked the inventor to name his price. The inventor gave the king a choice, his own weight in gold, or, the king could put one grain of rice on the first square of the board, two on the second, 4 on the 3rd, and keep on doubling the number of grains for every one of the 64 squares. The king hastily chose the second option. Somewhere around square 32, he came to a realization that there was not enough rice in the kingdom. Upon realizing that he could not possibly pay the debt, the king chose to kill the inventor.
The first half of the chessboard would have represented some 100 tonnes of rice, while the second half would have required 460 billion tonnes, some six times the mass of all life
on Earth.
, a Russian serial killer
, once said he wanted to murder 64 people, the same number as squares on a chessboard - leading to the nickname "chessboard killer."
, Iowa City, Iowa
resident David Christian killed neighbor Michael Steward after the two got into a fight over a chess match. Christian was sentenced to ten years in prison as part of a plea bargain.
featured a story about a chess player named "Nikolai Titov" whose head exploded during the Moscow Candidate Masters' Chess Championships due to the (fictional) condition 'Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis'.
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
has been associated with a number of anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s, and some relate to games that have resulted in the death of one of the players involved. The reliability of many of these anecdotes is suspect, but some appear to be based on fact.
Bavarian prince
Possibly the anecdote with the most supporting evidence is given in the book Chess or the King's gameChess or the King's game
Chess or the King's Game is a book on chess. It was published in 1616 under the name of Gustavus Selenus, the pen name of Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.This book is the earliest known to use Selenus-type chess pieces....
(1616) by Augustus, Duke of Lüneburg
Lüneburg
Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
, who claimed to have obtained it from an old Bavarian Chronicle, then in the library of Marcus Welsor but now lost. The anecdote states that Okarius (also spelt Okar or Otkar), the prince of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, had a son of great promise residing at the Court of King Pippin
Pippin the Younger
Pepin , called the Short or the Younger , rarely the Great , was the first King of the Franks of the Carolingian dynasty...
. One day Pippin's son was playing chess with the young Prince of Bavaria, and became so enraged at repeatedly losing that he hit the prince on the temple with one of his rooks and killed him on the spot. This anecdote is repeated in another Bavarian Chronicle, and in a work by Metellus of Tegernsee about Saint Quirin and other documents refer to his death while at Pippin's court.
Earl Ulf
King CanuteCanute the Great
Cnut the Great , also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F...
(c. 994
994
Year 994 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* Sweyn Forkbeard marries Sigrid the Haughty.* Otto III reaches his majority and begins to rule Germany in his own right....
–1035) of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, England and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, is said to have ordered an earl killed after a disagreement about a chess game. By one account, the king made an illegal move that angered Earl Ulf, who knocked over the board and stormed off, after which the king sent someone to kill him.
Murderous origins in Near East
In one likely apocryphal story about the origin of chess, the King of HindIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
commissioned a peasant or minister to create a strategy game
Strategy game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome...
of surpassing quality. Pleased with the result, the king asked the inventor to name his price. The inventor gave the king a choice, his own weight in gold, or, the king could put one grain of rice on the first square of the board, two on the second, 4 on the 3rd, and keep on doubling the number of grains for every one of the 64 squares. The king hastily chose the second option. Somewhere around square 32, he came to a realization that there was not enough rice in the kingdom. Upon realizing that he could not possibly pay the debt, the king chose to kill the inventor.
The first half of the chessboard would have represented some 100 tonnes of rice, while the second half would have required 460 billion tonnes, some six times the mass of all life
Biomass
Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....
on Earth.
"Chessboard killer"
Alexander PichushkinAlexander Pichushkin
Alexander Yuryevich "Sasha" Pichushkin , also known as The Chessboard Killer and The Bitsa Park Maniac, is a Russian serial killer...
, a Russian serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
, once said he wanted to murder 64 people, the same number as squares on a chessboard - leading to the nickname "chessboard killer."
Michael Steward
In October 2009October 2009
October 2009 was the 10th month of that year. It began on a Thursday and ended after 31 days on a Saturday.- Portal:Current events :This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from October 2009....
, Iowa City, Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, State of Iowa. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of about 67,862, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and home to the University of Iowa...
resident David Christian killed neighbor Michael Steward after the two got into a fight over a chess match. Christian was sentenced to ten years in prison as part of a plea bargain.
In fiction
- In Ambrose BierceAmbrose BierceAmbrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
's 1909 short story "Moxon's MasterMoxon's Master"Moxon's Master" is a short story by the late 19th century American author Ambrose Bierce that speculates on the nature of life and intelligence. It describes a chess-playing robot automaton that murders its creator...
", a chess-playing robot murders its creator after losing a game. - In Agatha ChristieAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's 1927 novel "The Big FourThe Big Four (novel)The Big Four is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on January 27, 1927 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector Japp...
", a chess master is murdered by a strong electrical shock dealt him in the third move of his Ruy LopezRuy LopezThe Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...
opening. In anticipation of his opening, the electrical connection was rigged to the square on the board through the floor from the apartment below. - In Kurt VonnegutKurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
's 1953 short story "All the King's Horses", a communist Chinese officer holds a U.S. ambassador, his family, and a number of enlisted men hostage, using them as chess pieces, ordering removed "pieces" to be executed. - In John BrunnerJohn Brunner (novelist)John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
's 1965 science fiction novel The Squares of the CityThe Squares of the CityThe Squares of the City is a science fiction novel written by John Brunner and first published in 1965 . It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1966....
, the murderous events which take place are eventually shown to have the structure of a famous 1892 chess game between Wilhelm SteinitzWilhelm SteinitzWilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...
and Mikhail ChigorinMikhail ChigorinMikhail Ivanovich Chigorin also was a leading Russian chess player...
. - In the 1967 spy film Deadlier Than the MaleDeadlier Than the MaleDeadlier Than the Male is a 1967 British action film featuring the character of Bulldog Drummond. It is one of the many take-offs of James Bond produced during the 1960s but based on an established detective fiction hero...
, the chief hero and villain square off on a giant electronically controlled chess board manned by lethal pieces. - In Dorothy DunnettDorothy DunnettDorothy Dunnett OBE was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò...
's 1969 novel Pawn in Frankincense, a character is coerced into a life-size chess match with his son's life at stake. - Katherine Neville's 1988 novel The EightThe Eight (novel)The Eight, published December 27, 1988, is American author Katherine Neville's debut novel. Compared to the works of Umberto Eco when it first appeared, it is a postmodern thriller in which the heroine, accountant Catherine Velis, must enter into a cryptic world of danger and conspiracy in order to...
centers around an ancient chess set over which two opposing factions have battled for centuries, taking the roles of actual chess pieces. - In the 1992 thriller film Knight MovesKnight MovesKnight Moves is a 1992 American thriller film, directed by Carl Schenkel and written by Brad Mirman, about a chess grandmaster who is accused of several grisly murders.-Synopsis:...
, a serial killer commits a series of murders across the city and a chess grandmaster helps catch him. - In the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneHarry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard...
, characters become human chess pieces in a life-sized game of Wizard's Chess, risking their lives.
Parody
In 1994, the parody newspaper Weekly World NewsWeekly World News
The Weekly World News was a supermarket tabloid published in the United States from 1979 to 2007, renowned for its outlandish cover stories often based on supernatural or paranormal themes and an approach to news that verged on the satirical. Its characteristic black-and-white covers have become...
featured a story about a chess player named "Nikolai Titov" whose head exploded during the Moscow Candidate Masters' Chess Championships due to the (fictional) condition 'Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis'.