Chess Players Turned Criminal
Many people are able to make a prolific career out of chess. These players form the upper echelon of professional chess and are the people you and I enjoy following. However, not everyone who plays our beloved game decides to pursue this career choice. Some tread down a much darker path; one of crime and corruption. Today we'll be looking at several notable chess players turned criminals, their chess careers, what they were convicted for, and if they had the potential to make a run in the chess world.
Table of Contents:
Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin
Alexander Pichushkin is an infamous Russian serial killer who was nicknamed the "Chessboard Killer." Pichushkin was described by his relatives as an ordinary child until he fell off a swing in his youth and it struck him in the forehead. It has been speculated that he most likely sustained damage to the frontal cortex of his brain, which is known to cause personality changes and impulsivity, and honestly, this would explain a lot about his future. Pichushkin experienced drastic mental changes after this accident and became more hostile and aggressive, and prone to angry outbursts.
Nevertheless, he was still an intelligent child and was encouraged to play chess by his grandfather, whom he lived with at the time. He would play simuls against local elderly players in Bitsa Park, Moscow where he grew up. While several sources say he was an outstanding chess player, I was unable to find any of his games so he must've just been a casual club player.
Pichushkin's first murder occurred in July 1992. He had hatched a joint plan with his friend Mikhail Oditchuk to kill sixty-four people, ironically the same number of squares on a chessboard. When Mikhail de-committed from this plot, Alexander killed him. His body was never found.
Alexander Pichushkin continued his sporadic killings between 1992-2007 and usually targeted solitary people he came across in Bitsa Park. In fact, his next victim was a middle-aged man who he murdered after facing him in a game of chess.
Overall, Pichushkin allegedly killed sixty-one people (only forty-eight of the murders were confirmed) before he was apprehended in 2007. While his initial plan had been to complete his chessboard full of murders, he admitted that he would've continued his crime spree indefinitely, if given the chance. Pichushkin was sentenced to life in Siberian prison, with the first fifteen years spent in solitary confinement, where he's still imprisoned today. Since none of Pichushkin's games were saved it's tough to gauge how much chess potential he had, although his fall from the swing and tramautic childhood certainly hindered his career.
Raymond Weinstein was a brilliant prodigy, with much success in junior chess events. He won the 1958 U.S. Junior Chess Championship and defeated legendary grandmasters such as Pal Benko and Samuel Reshevsky in his youth. Weinstein also ironically attended the same high school as Bobby Fischer, and played Fischer several times in his career. While he never defeated Fischer, Weinstein did manage to draw him in the game below played in the 1959-1960 U.S. Championship.
Weinstein's crown jewel came roughly a year later in the 1960-1961 U.S. Championship, when he made a statement by coming in third place overall, behind William Lombardy and Fischer. This achievement qualified Weinstein to participate in the 1962 Interzonal Tournament, and although he didn't end up attending, he still automatically earned the International Master title as a result.
It was soon after this event that Raymond Weinstein's prospective route to GM was cut short. Weinstein developed an unidentified mental illness shortly after graduating from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor's in psychology. After assaulting a fellow IM, Weinstein was detained in a mental institute. It was there that he killed his eighty-three year old roommate with a razor. Weinstein was redirected to a permanent mental hospital, where he remains today, clinically insane and generally uncommunicative.
Disclaimer: When looking for resources on Norman Tweed Whitaker I came to the realization that fellow Top Blogger @anikolay wrote a blog on him before me. So if you want to read his article on this player click here.
Norman T. Whitaker, like Raymond Weinstein, was introduced to chess in his teens and had a prominent chess career in his youth. He defeated both Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raul Capablanca in simultaneous exhibitions, two absolute chess goliaths. Despite only reaching the International Master title, Whitaker's list of accolades testified to his high-quality play. If not caught up in several criminal actions and a devastating train wreck that severely injured his wife, Whitaker certainly could've attained the grandmaster title. Below is the simul game in which Whitaker defeated Lasker:
Whitaker partook in intercollegiate play while studying at the University of Pennsylvania and represented the U.S. in the global Amateur World Championship. Whitaker was a common participant in the annual Western Open and finished in the Top 4 every year from 1921-1924. Whitaker also came in second place in the nine-tournament American Chess Congress tournament series in 1921, the predecessor to the U.S. Championships.
Whitaker's crime phase began shortly after his peak chess performance, also similar to Raymond Weinstein. In 1924, Whitaker was disbarred from practicing law (which he had begun in 1916) for conspiring with his relatives in an auto theft/insurance fraud scheme. Whitaker was then sentenced to two years in a local penitentiary before being released in 1929.
Whitaker gained notoriety on a national level later in spring of 1932 when he became involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping, the abduction of American aviator Charles Lindbergh's son, who was later found dead. Whitaker and his partner in crime Gaston Means attempted to extort the publisher of the Washington Post by claiming to be in contact with the kidnappers and promising the safe return of Charles Lindbergh Jr. Whitaker only served eighteen months of prison time for this offense, but for the majority of his adulthood he served time in numerous different prisons, including Alcatraz, for various different crimes. I think that Whitaker had the talent to achieve GM, but like Weinstein, crime impeded this prospect.
David Toska was the ringleader of the 2004 Nokas Robbery. Toska led twelve other heavily-armed perpetrators to rob the Nokas Cash Handling (NOKAS) on April 5, 2004. He was also the mastermind who spent months formulating an elaborate plan to complete the robbery. A truck was ignited and used to block off the main road, smoke grenades were used to mask the view of the building, and spike traps were placed to avoid a police confrontation. However, the group ended up having to break a window which gave the police enough time to arrive, and gunfire erupted from both sides, killing one policeman and injuring a robber. The group ended up taking 57 Norwegian kroner (or $6.5 million), and weren't apprehended until exactly a year later. Toska was subsuquently sentenced to eighteen years in prison, but he was released in 2018 on trial. The Nokas robbery ended up being the biggest Norwegian robbery in history.
What's most interesting about David Toska though is his love for the game of chess. Once again, there are no recorded games of his so it's tough to judge, but Toska came fourth in the U14 Norwegian Championship in his youth and says that he has reached an online rating of 2000.
So what connections does Toska have to the chess world besides a passion for chess? Well, during the 2022 Tata Steel, the Norwegian channel TV2 invited a guest commentator to comment on the games. Who was this guest? None other than David Toska, who was now commentating for one of the largest TV channels in the country he had robbed nearly twenty years ago. This sparked a controversy that was covered by Chess24's article here. While it's disappointing that Toska has played no recorded games, he's definitely a colorful character that is connected to the chess scene.
Robert Snyder is a National Master and former renowned chess instructor from Colorado. He is the author of several award-winning, best-selling chess books like Chess For Juniors, Sicilian 2 b3, Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors, and Winning Chess Tournaments for Juniors. Snyder founded the Chess for Juniors club in 1983 in his own hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado. He also allegedly introduced more than 170,000 elementary and high school students to chess. 36 of his students have earned first place in the National Scholastic Championships. Below is a game Snyder won in the 82nd US Open (1981):
Ironically, Snyder was arrested in the early 2000s for a spree of child molestations dating back to 1983, the same year Snyder founded his children's chess club. In 2008, Snyder was featured on America's Most Wanted after escaping Colorado while on probation. He was found two years later in Belize and was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty. It's clear that Snyder was not only a remarkable player, but also an excellent tutor who coached dozens of students to national prominence. It's unclear what the source of his questionable behavior was, but it ultimately ruined Snyder's life and probably the state of mind of his victims.
Bibliography:
Alexander Pichushkin:
Raymond Weinstein:
Norman T. Whitaker:
David Toska:
Robert Snyder:
Conclusion:
As always, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this blog, make sure to leave a comment below. I'll probably start posting more frequently again since I recently joined Season 5 of Blogchamps, so expect a few posts this autumn. I also have my next OTB tournament on November 4th so if you've been waiting for my next OTB recap that'll be coming in mid November. Thanks again for reading, it's much appreciated. Until next time,
-Nimzo
