Much has been the discussion of the BEST players- a debate which quickly involves time-traveling grandmasters and such nonsense.

But who is decidedly the WORST player?

By this, I do not mean your four-year-old son who knocks the pieces about, nor that guy in the park who never develops the queenside. I mean someone who is famously inept, or failing that, someone who makes prodigious efforts to expose their lack of talent to the world of chess. Something of the type such as this:

"There was one player who would at the drop of the hat offer to play a simul of eight games, and would invariably lose every one of them."

Most likely we will have to rely on some input from our renowned historian batgirl, from days when chess was a game that noble gentlemen felt obliged to involve themselves in despite a glorious lack of talent. Nonetheless I would be interested to know about any latter-day hopeless pushers whom you have encountered, either personally in tournament play or otherwise.

Kind of a mean topic :)....Kind of common situation here I don't remember the fellow's name, but one guy I met was telling me he was awesome at chess and always beat his friend when they played, so that pretty much made him a GM.

I explained that quantity of wins was not as important as quality.  He said "but I could beat this guy like 100 times in a row easily" Again, I said, the number of wins isn't important.  I could beat my 5 year old cousin 100 times.  He said, yeah, but my friend is really good. I said, well, how does he lose to you 100 times in a row then?

This gambit was easily refuted by him by a counter-gambit whereby he sidestepped my variation of reasoning and disagreed/ changed the subject all in one fluid motion

This player was my worst opponent, he stunk...

During the years I have seen quite some hopeless cases...

OK, I'll nominate Jankowski!

Soon .. one and all will admit .. it is .. ISH :D

Colonel Moreau, 0 out of 26 at Monte Carlo 1903. Never heard of again afterwards.

Id saw Euwe, but he was world champion... another to consider is Marshal, although he was great he was beaten down by the immortals, but id say Euwe more since hes played more world champions, I think, and lost horribly or didnt do good at all. At least thats what I've heard, dont take my  word for it though. I guess theres a lot of people through the span of time, wasted or ignored their talent and didnt make it to the big leagues and were thought of as losers never to have made it big.

Moreau was the strongest player in Monte Carlo at the time, but an amateur. He was enetred into Monte Carlo 1903 tournament to make number of players even. It's as if a player with 2000 rating was to play against Carlsen, Nakamura, Kramnik, Aronian etc in a tournament today.

Gligoric wrote that there was a player in Hastings in the 70es who at first moves used to push all his pawns one square ahead "So that the pieces have room". Only I can't remember his name.

However, the WORST player ever, IMHO, the one that "makes a prodigious effort to expose his lack of talent in chess" - it's ME. 

Beniamino Vergani has to be in the running. The guy must have had a lot of pull. He had Maroczy demoted to the minor tournament at Hastings 1895 and took his place in the major tournament. He had some reputation as a blindfold player. I'm afraid the other players used him as a punching bag. Its was like a day off when you played Vergani. You didnt have to work hard, you didnt have to think hard---you let technique win for you. In a nutshell here is Vergani's bio---nobody heard much of the guy before the tournament, nobody heard much of the guy during the tournament, and nobody heard much of the guy after the tournament.

Did you ever here the expression---"Say!, who was that Italian stalion? Why that was Vergani!"

Lance darling was the worst player ever. Look at this game.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1251128

The game was played april 1

Richard Wood was state champion of Oregon approx 2250.

Darling was a class A approx 1975.

Did you know them (I see you list Oregon as your location)?

Yes,  I knew Richard slightly and I would see Lance occasionally at tournaments.

Chucky.

*Again, Nominates Ish as Worst Player Ever*

Bobby Fischer for not turning up in 1975 WCC. 

Yitzd anyone?

I'll say WellRead. The No.1 Worst player.

KCO---let me explain something to you---the worst means there is nobody worse than the person you name. He is the ultimate patzer. There is no one who plays as badly as he does---capice.

You have named three players and you will have to eliminate two of them or you will be ineligible for the prize. Come on KCO---I'm pulling for you!