Bill Wall's Chess Blog

  Around 1120, King Henry I (1068-1135) of England and King Louis VI (1081-1137) of France got into a fistfight over a game of chess in Paris. One story says that Louis threw the chessboard at Henry; another says that Henry hit Louis over the head with the chessboard. Courtiers stepped in to stop the fight. This episode supposedly was the start of events that kept England and France at war for almost 12 years. In 1867, Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900) got in a dispute with Henry Blackburne at a City of London Chess Club game. Blackburne made an insulting remark and Steinitz spat towards Blackburne. Blackburne, who was over 6 feet and 250 pounds, then smashed the diminutive Steinitz in the face with his fist. Steinitz wrote, “…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 ...

  In 1622, Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634), an Italian chess player and writer, was robbed of all his money.  While n Paris, Greco won 5,000 crowns (some sources say it was 5,000  scudi , the monetary coin of Italy and Sicily; another source says it was 50,000 ducats) at the Court of Charles IV (1604-1675), the Duke of Lorraine.  He had won his money playing chess and selling chess manuscripts.  While traveling from Paris to London in 1622 (or already in England ), he was robbed of his 5,000 crowns and nearly murdered.  Crowns were the most commonly used coins, made either of silver or gold.  A crown was 60 pennies or pence.  240 pennies made a pound.  Greco was robbed of 21 pounds, or about $2,000 in today’s money.     [source British Chess Magazine , March 1895, p. 109] On July 1, 1896, U.S. chess champion Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) resigned from the Manhattan Chess Club because someone stole his um...

  Norman Tweed Whitaker was born in Philadelphia to an upper middle class family on April 9, 1890.  He was an American lawyer, civil servant, chess author, criminal, and International Master of chess.    Whitaker's father, Dr. Herbert Coleman Whitaker (1862-1921), had a PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania (dissertation: A Discussion of a Certain Differential Equation) and respected mathematics teacher at a high school  in Philadelphia.  Whitaker's mother, Agnes Tweed, was a champion whist card player.  Norman was the oldest of four children. In 1904, Whitaker was taught to play chess by his father. In 1905, Whitaker watched the chess games of Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) and became further interested in chess. In 1907, he was Philadelphia High School Chess Champion. Whitaker joined the Franklin Mercantile Chess Club in Philadelphia and played in their team chess matches. Norman Whitaker graduated from the University of Pennsylvani...

  'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the Net, Not a gambit was playing on a single chess set; The pieces were hung by the patzers who played, In hopes that some master a mistake would be made;   The players were nestled all around their game, While visions of checkmate would give them some fame, And my opponent in his PJs, and I in my socks, Had just settled our brains for a long game with clocks.   When out on the Internet there was such a chatter, I turned Zoom on to see what was the matter. Away to my Windows I downloaded my Flash, To open the file and hoped Windows wouldn't crash.   The text was a chess game written in PGN, it included a diagram showing all the chessmen. When, what to my wondering eyes should I see, But a miniature chess problem, with mate in three.   With such a chess ending, so lively and quick, It had to be solved with some sort of trick. Perhaps White promotes to a knight or a rook, Whatever the solution, it's not in the bo...

  On July 14, 1937, Claude Frizzell Bloodgood III (born Klaus Frizzell Bluttgutt III) was born in Norfolk, Virginia.  His parents were  Klaus Frizzell Bluttgutt , Jr. (1909-1968) and Margaret Belma Howell (1910-1969), married in 1932.  Bloodgood later claimed that he was born on July 24, 1924 (Bastille Day) in La Paz, Mexico. [source: H ellman,  The Chess Artist , 2003, p. 280] Bloodgood had a sister, Lois Elizabeth Bloodgood Carlton (1942-2005).  She became a lawyer. Bloodgood learned chess at the age of 5, taught by his father. As a young man, he was arrested several times for burglary. In 1952, at the age of 15, Bloodgood robbed a convenience store using his father's German Luger pistol.  He was tried as an adult and released in 1954. In 1954, Bloodgood joined the marines.  He was sent to Okinawa where he was trained as a sharpshooter.  [source: Hoffman, King's Gambi t, 2007, p. 175]  He served in the U.S. Marines until October 1957. ...