Did he really drink "litres" of brandy on a daily basis?? Wow, those old GM's lived a crazy life.
Was Alekhine assassinated?
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I heard he choked to death while dining alone.
ArchbishopCheckmate wrote:
I heard he choked to death while dining alone.
That was the Official Version, yes.
What is being discussed here, is whether or not there may have been a coverup?
Grandmaster Larry Evans had first-hand contact with the actual medical examiner who attended Alekkine's body in 1946. He wrote to Evans while he had a column with Chess Life. This was way before I was even board. The article of Evans pretty much assured everyone Alekhine died of asphyxiation from choking on a piece of steak while dining alone.
ArchbishopCheckmate wrote:
Grandmaster Larry Evans had first-hand contact with the actual medical examiner who attended Alekkine's body in 1946. He wrote to Evans while he had a column with Chess Life. This was way before I was even board. The article of Evans pretty much assured everyone Alekhine died of asphyxiation from choking on a piece of steak while dining alone.
Similar is found hereBill Wall
Conspiracy????
JessieWong wrote:
Conspiracy????
I doubt it. A drunk old guy, alone, eating steak, it is plausible that he choked on meat,or had a heart attack, and, they did find meat blocking his windpipe. The tales of the Soviets fearing his chess domination in a comeback are exaggerated a bit- it makes for a good story, and helps elevate his memory as a chess master so feared that they had one logical option- send a killer a thousand miles to a small town and kill him, make it look accidental.
gargraves wrote:
JessieWong wrote:
Conspiracy????
I doubt it. A drunk old guy, alone, eating steak, it is plausible that he choked on meat,or had a heart attack, and, they did find meat blocking his windpipe. The tales of the Soviets fearing his chess domination in a comeback are exaggerated a bit- it makes for a good story, and helps elevate his memory as a chess master so feared that they had one logical option- send a killer a thousand miles to a small town and kill him, make it look accidental.
You don't think the (in)famous death photos were staged? See Post#2
If they were, what else was staged?
I'll bet you have never heard of the NKVD. The Soviets had agents stationed in Portugal.
Alekhine played in the famous "unfinished tournament" in manheim germany in 1914. A truly remarkable story
It's an interesting conspiracy but I don't think the Soviets would have gone to the trouble of killing Alekhine, Stalin had bigger fish to fry in 1946.
The photos were staged but it was done for profit not politics. The photographer probably just placed Alekhine's body and the chessboard in those positions for a better picture.
Did you see the state of Alekhine in the years before he died? He looked in his 70s but was just past 50. He was over the hill, an alcoholic and dying from kidney failure.
Jamie
What in that photo says "staged" to you?
Sachan_1978 wrote:
It's an interesting conspiracy but I don't think the Soviets would have gone to the trouble of killing Alekhine, Stalin had bigger fish to fry in 1946.
The photos were staged but it was done for profit not politics. The photographer probably just placed Alekhine's body and the chessboard in those positions for a better picture.
Did you see the state of Alekhine in the years before he died? He looked in his 70s but was just past 50. He was over the hill, an alcoholic and dying from kidney failure.
If it was an assassination, ( which I am not saying it was) I would be more inclined to believe French Nazi hunters were the culprits.
suspicious
He quit smoking in 1936
varelse1 wrote:
Jamie
What in that photo says "staged" to you?
Would a person choking to death serenely sit in front of a set up chessboard and empty dishes? There were multiple picture of the scene taken by the same photographer, with subtle differences. Clearly a case of manipulation of the setting.
JamieDelarosa wrote:
varelse1 wrote:
Jamie
What in that photo says "staged" to you?
Would a person choking to death serenely sit in front of a set up chessboard and empty dishes? There were multiple picture of the scene taken by the same photographer, with sublte differences. Clearly a case of manipulation of the setting.
I don't know much about choking deaths,other than what I seen on TV.
I suppose there is a certain logic to that.
enotSgnilloR wrote:
Yes, def murdered. Also, a few of the recent GM deaths in Russia have been murders as well. When the Russian Federation reports a death from natural causes, don't believe it. Too coincidental so many of these guys "jumped" to their death.
Probably assassinated, and it wouldn't be the first time. At least we have his books, theory, and games (but somewhat surprised they weren't scrubbed from history).
The machinations of the old Soviet Union went far beyond what history records.
Any death not caused by violent trauma is technically said to be caused by heart failure. What causes the heart to fail may be lack of oxygen to the brain, shutting down the autonomic nervous system that controls the heart, loss of blood causing the heart to "seize up", or a hundred other things. A drunken, terminally ill old man may have passed out while eating, or started to choke and suffered s heart attack, or suffered heart failure while eating, leaving a piece of meat stuck in his throat.
All these conspiracy theories are amusing. French revenge? He wasn't French and didn't participate in any Nazi activities in France. Stalin's revenge for fleeing Russia and denouncing Bolshevism? He would have been killed 10 years earlier in that case. Perhaps it was death rays from Venus. The best evidence comes from the most prominent pathologist in Portugal at the time, who performed the autopsy and declared that the proximate cause of death was choking on a chunk of meat.
From Wikipedia article on Alexander Alekhine:
After World War II, Alekhine was not invited to chess tournaments outside the Iberian Peninsula, because of his alleged Nazi affiliation. His original invitation to the London 1946 tournament was withdrawn when the other competitors protested.
While planning for a World Championship match against Botvinnik, Alekhine died aged 53 in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal on March 24, 1946. The circumstances of his death are still a matter of debate. It is usually attributed to a heart attack, but a letter in Chess Life magazine from a witness to the autopsy stated that choking on meat was the actual cause of death. At autopsy, a three-inch-long piece of unchewed meat was discovered blocking his windpipe.
Some have speculated that he was murdered by a French "death squad". A few years later, Alekhine's son, Alexander Alekhine, Jr., said that "the hand of Moscow reached his father". Canadian Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett, who has lived in Portugal since the late 1980s, and who has thoroughly investigated Alekhine's death, favors this possibility. Spraggett makes a case for the manipulation of the crime scene and the autopsy by the Portuguese secret police PIDE. He believes that Alekhine was murdered outside his hotel room, probably by the Soviets.
(Footnotes and hyperlinks in the original have been removed for greater ease of reading)
"Are you an Alekhine fan? Do you have an opinion either way about his death? I’d love to hear them--feel free to leave a comment!"