Death of Chess players
Chess personalities and their cause of death by Bill Wall
Player’s Name
Born/Death
Cause of Death
Abe Turner
1924
/ 1962
Stabbed nine
times in the back by a fellow employee at the Chess Review office
Alexandre Deschapelles
1780
/ 1847
Hydropsy
Abram Rabinovich
1878 / 1943
Starvation
Adolf Anderssen
1818
/ 1879
Heart attack
Aivars Gipslis
1937
/ 2000
Stroke while playing Chess in Berlin
Alexander
Alekhine
1892
/ 1946
Choked
to death on a piece of meat
Alexander
Ilyin-Genevsky
1894
/ 1941
Died in the siege of Leningrad
while on a barge
Alexander McDonnell
1798
/ 1835
Died of Bright’s
disease
Alexander Zaitsev
1935 / 1971
Died of
thrombosis as a consequence
of a leg operation
Alexei Suetin
1926
/ 2001
Heart attack after a Chess tournament
Alexey Vyzmanavin
1960
/ 2000
Heart attack / Age 40
Alexi Troitzky
1866
/ 1942
Died of
starvation during the
siege of Leningrad
Alvis Vitolins
1938
/ 1997
Suicide by jumping
Andor A. Lilienthal
1911
/
2010
Died after a long illness
Aron Nimzovich
1886
/ 1935
Died of pneumonia
Arthur Dake
1910
/ 2000
Died in his sleep at age 90
Bent
Larsen
1935
/
2010
Died from
a cerebral hemorrhage
Boris Kostic
1887
/
1963
Blood poisoning from a scratch
Carl Schlechter
1874
/ 1918
Died from
pneumonia and starvation
Cecil de Vere
1845
/ 1975
Tuberculosis
Cecil Purdy
1906
/ 1979
Died of a heart attack while playing
Chess
Claude Bloodgood
1924
/ 2001
Lung cancer while in prison for life
Curt von Bardeleben
1861
/ 1924
Threw himself out the window
of his boarding home
Daniel Yanovsky
1925
/ 2000
Cancer
David Bronstein
1924
/ 2006
Died of a stroke
in Minsk,
Belarus at age 82
David Przepiorka
1880 / 1940
Died in a mass
execution outside
Warsaw
Dawid Janowsky
1868 / 1927
Tuberculosis
Ed Edmundson
1920
/ 1982
Died of a heart
attack while playing
Chess on a beach in Hawaii
Edgar Colle
1897
/ 1932
Died after an
operation for a gastric ulcer
Edmar Mednis
1937
/ 2002
Pneumonia and cardiac arrest
Eduard Gufeld
1936
/ 2002
Stroke
Efim Bogoljubov
1889
/ 1952
Suffered a heart attack after
a
simultaneous display
Efim Geller
1925
/ 1998
Cancer
Emanuel Lasker
1868
/ 1941
Heart attack
Erik Andersen
1904
/ 1938
Unknown / Age 33
Frank Marshall
1877
/ 1944
Died of a
heart attack after leaving
a Chess tournament
Frederick Yates
1884
/ 1932
Died in his
sleep from a leak in a
faulty gas pipe connection
George
Koltanowski
1903
/ 2000
Heart failure at the age of 97
George Mackenzie
1837
/ 1891
Suicide: took an overdose of morphine.
Georgy Agzamov
1954
/ 1986
Russian GM
fell between some
rocks at a beach and died
Gideon Stahlberg
1908
/ 1967
Heart attack during
the 1967
Leningrad
International tournament
Guillermo Garcia
1953
/ 1990
Car wreck
Gyula Breyer
1893
/ 1921
Died
from heart disease
Harry Pillsbury
1872
/ 1906
Died of
syphilis
Henry Buckle
1821
/ 1862
Typhoid fever
Herman Steiner
1905
/ 1955
Died after a
California State
Championship game
Howard Staunton
1810
/ 1874
Died of a
heart attack while
writing a Chess
book
Ignatz von Kolisch
1837 / 1889
Kidney failure at the age of 52
Janos Flesch
1933 / 1983
Died in a car
wreck in England
Johann Allgaie
1763
/ 1823
Dropsy
Johann Zukertort
1842
/ 1888
Died of a
stroke while playing Chess
at a London coffee-house
Johannes
Minckwitz
1843
/ 1901
Suicide: threw himself under a train
Jose Capablanca
1888
/ 1942
Died of a
stroke while watching a skittles game at
the Manhattan Chess Club
Josef Cukierman
1900
/ 1941
Committed suicide during world war II
Joseph Blackburne
1841
/ 1924
Heart attack
Julius Perlis
1880
/ 1913
Died in a
mountain climb in the Alps
Karel Treybal
1885 / 1941
Died a victim
of the Nazis
Karen Grigorian
1947 / 1989
Suicide by jumping
Karl Robatsch
1928 / 2000
Stomach and throat cancer
Klaus Junge
1924 / 1945
German army
officer killed in action
Larry Melvyn Evans
1932
/ 2010
Died from complications
following a gallbladder operation
Lembit Oll
1966
/ 1999
Suicide by jumping out of the
window of his 5th story apartment
Leonid Kubbel
1891
/ 1942
Died in the
siege of Leningrad
Leonid Stein
1934
/ 1973
Stroke
Lionel Kieseritzky
1806
/ 1856
Died in a mental asylum
Louis Bourdonnais
1795
/ 1840
Died of
diabetes
Louis Paulsen
1833
/ 1891
Died of
diabetes
Max Euwe
1901
/ 1981
Heart attack
Miguel Najdorf
1910
/ 1997
Heart attack
Mikhail
Botvinnik
1911
/ 1995
Died of
cancer
Mikhail Chigorin
1850
/ 1908
Died of
diabetes
Mikhail Tal
1936
/ 1992
Died of
kidney failure in Moscow
Nicholas
Rossolimo
1910
/ 1975
Fell from flight of stairs
and
died of head injuries
Nikolai
Grigoriev
1895
/ 1938
Died from
appendicitis
Nikolai Krylenko
1885 / 1938
Executed
in Stalin’s purges
Paolo Boi
1528
/ 1598
Poisoned (murdered) in
Naples
Paul Keres
1916 / 1975
Died of a
heart attack returning
home from a tournament
Paul Leonhardt
1877 / 1938
Died of a
heart attack while playing
Chess at a Chess
club
Paul Morphy
1837 / 1884
Died of a
stroke while taking a cold bath
Pierre Saint-Amant
1800 / 1872
Died after a
fall from his carriage
Ricardo Calvo
1943 / 2002
Esophagus cancer
Richard Reti
1889 / 1929
Died of
scarlet fever
Robert
J. Fischer
1943
/ 2008
Died of
kidney failure in Iceland
Rosendo Balinas
1941
/ 1998
Liver cancer
Rudolf Rezso
Charousek
1873
/ 1900
Died
of tuberculosis at age 27
Salo Landau
1903 / 1944
Killed by Nazis at a German
concentration camp
Samuel Boden
1826 / 1882
Died of
typhoid fever
Samuel Reshevsky
1911 / 1992
Heart attack
Stefan Zweig
1881 / 1942
Committed
suicide
Thomas Barnes
1825 / 1874
Complications with too much weight loss
Tigran Petrosian
1929 / 1984
Died of
cancer
Tony Miles
1955 / 2001
Died in his sleep at age 46,
he was diabetic
Vera Menchik
1906 / 1944
Died in the V1 German
bombing of London
Viktor Korchnoi
1931 / 2016
Passed away after being admitted to a hospital suffering from a haemorrhage
Vladimir Bagirov
1936 / 2000
Heart attack while playing Chess in Finland
Vladimir Petrov
1907 / 1945
Died in a
prison camp in Russia
Vladimir Simagin
1919 / 1968
Died of a
heart attack while
playing in a tournament
Vsevolod Rauzer
1908 / 1941
Died
of tuberculosis at age 33
Vugar Gashimov
1986 / 2014
Brain tumor / Age 27
William Henry Russ
1833 / 1866
Shot himself in the head
