King to a0: A Game Gone Wrong

The year 1962 brought all sorts of thrills and excitement to the chess world as after winning the US Chess Championship four times in a row between 1957 and 1961, Robert James Fischer had now started to take over all the prestigious international tournaments, beginning from a sensational 17.5/22 in the Stockholm Interzonal where he went undefeated. Behind him followed Tigran Petrosian with 15/22, who won the Curacao Candidates held later in May 1962. The year is also remembered for Fischer's controversial accusation against the Soviets for pre-arranging draws. 

However, as beautifully described by Ted Hughes in one of his poems, with thrill comes tremble, and so it did in 1962. Amid all this excitement, Abraham (Abe) Turner, one of the top players in America, an employee at The Chess Review, and one of the few masters who had a winning record against Bobby Fischer, was found stabbed and dead in his own office. 

What really happened? Why was he murdered? To answer your questions, let me take you through his life and chess career. 

Table of Contents

• Stressful Inceptions and Learning Chess
• 1950s: A Decade Filled with Success
• Appearing in TV Shows and Films
• Assassination, Death, and Controversy
• Final Statements and Conclusion

Stressful Inceptions and Learning Chess

Abe Turner was born in 1924 in New York City to anonymous parents. I didn't find anything related to his early life endeavors in any of the sources, but it's believed that he never married and spent most of the time of his life living with his father. He got interested in chess in the early 1940s and picked up the game back in 1943 while he was recuperating at a Naval hospital from shrapnel wounds sustained during the Second World War. 

Even though he stepped into the field of chess relatively late compared to other chess masters, he made loads and heaps of improvement after recovering from the Second World War and quickly climbed his way up to the master level. Most of his chess achievements came between the years 1950-1960. 

1950s: A Decade Filled with Success

Turner strengthened his chess skills in the early years of the 1950s and had great results in tournaments, which led to him receiving invitations to play in several US Championships and US Opens (the first invitation being in 1953) when they used to be round-robin events. It's pretty impressive that Turner was considered good enough to compete at that level! He loved playing endgames, and would usually just trade enough pieces to reach the last stage of the play.

His style of play consisted mostly of grabbing a pawn and then trading pieces to reach an endgame.

He was known for his exceptional skills in blitz chess and later came to be known as a strong chess hustler. On five different occasions, Turner came in second place in the Manhattan Chess Club championship. He always looked back on his performance at the U.S. Open in Long Beach, California in 1955 as his best, where he finished fourth, but not before securing a draw against Nicolas Rossolimo at the 55th US Open in 1954. Not long after, he found himself tied for first place in San Diego with William Lombardy and James Sherwin.

Back in the day when International Masters and your average Grandmasters typically had ratings in the 2450-2500 range, he boasted a USCF rating of over 2400, which placed him in the elite "Senior Master" category.

Turner's most famous game was his draw against Bobby Fischer at the US Championship in 1957/58 when the latter was 14 years old. After securing a draw against Turner in the last round, Fischer was crowned the best player in the US, i.e., he was now the US Chess Champion. 

Abe Turner used to hang out at the Chess and Checkers Club of New York in Times Square, next to the New Amsterdam Theatre, famously called the "flea house", where anyone could play chess for just ten cents an hour. Fischer was also a regular at the club and learned a lot from Turner as his student. 

Appearing in TV Shows and Films 

He was a part of the award-winning theatrical short A Bowl of Cherries in 1961, a silent comedy that follows the journey of a cowboy artist as he ventures into New York and stumbles upon the fascinating world of abstract painting.

He continued his life as a chess hustler and player and later made small appearances on TV shows and short films. Shortly before his passing, Turner made an appearance on a television game show called Who Do You Trust, hosted by Johnny Carson. Here's how the conversation unfolded during the interview: 

Turner: "If I lost 25 pounds I think I could beat anybody in the world."
Carson: "Why would losing 25 lbs. help you win at chess?"
Turner: "It just would make me mentally alert and give me more vim and vigor."
Carson: "Why not go on a diet?"
Turner: "I don't eat much anyway."
Carson: "So how do you account for your weight? You're pretty heavy."
Turner: "I drink lots of soda pop every day."
Carson: "What do you do to relax?"
Turner: "I go to the zoo. I like to watch the monkeys. It makes me feel superior to them, puts me at ease."

If I lost 25 pounds I think I could beat anybody in the world. 

- Abe Turner

Assassination, Death and Controversy 

In October 1962, Turner decided to work as an employee at The Chess Review. However, tragedy occurred at The Chess Review when Turner, who worked as a clerk and had been a member of the team for just a few weeks, was discovered fatally stabbed in the basement of the building where he had been working. 

Turner, tipping the scales at 280 pounds, had been stabbed nine times and somehow managed to be dragged down a hallway and tucked into a safe, where the building superintendent, Miguel Vasquez, found him in the afternoon later. 

After the body was discovered, police arrested a clerk-typist named Theodore Smith, who had also been working at The Chess Review. One version of the story claims that Smith, recently released from an asylum, confessed to killing Turner during an elevator ride to the basement storeroom. Smith allegedly said Secret Service agents had convinced him that Turner was a Communist spy and needed to be eliminated. He told police he tossed the knife in Central Park, though it was never recovered. Turner's body was discovered just half an hour after he had finished work.

Another version of the story, shared by Arthur Bisguier, who was also working as a writer for Chess Review at the time, suggests that Smith killed Turner in the elevator after Turner made a homosexual advance, which enraged Smith. Bisguier mentioned that he knew Smith and liked him, noting that whenever his wife visited the Chess Review office, Smith was always very polite and would even pull out a chair for her to sit on.

Soon after the incident, Smith was arrested for the murder of Abe Turner. 

Final Statements and Conclusion

At the end, RIP Abe Turner. Nobody deserves an end like that. Abe Turner left behind the chess world at the mere age of 38, a tragedy indeed. I tried to dig a bit further but didn't really find what happened to his murderer other than being arrested. 

That's it from me today, I hope you learned a new thing about your beloved game today. Even though the field of chess is fascinating, tragedies keep taking place from time to time. 

Thanks for reading this blog. Here are the sources used: Wikipedia, Edward Winter's article on Chess History, Tartajubow's blog, Chessable's article, and of course, ChessGames.com. 

Again, thank you for reading, and do let me know your thoughts and views in the comment section. This was a short blog compared to my latest ones, to be honest. I am open to all sorts of feedback, whether negative or positive, so do share if you got them. Also do let me know if you find a mistake in the blog. 

Unit next time, I am outta here.