Bloody and Gruesome Chess Related Deaths
Share:
Known as the ‘Game of Kings’, chess is a centuries-old game of strategy and sacrifice played by nobles, scholars and royalty since the 6th century. As any chess player knows, every game requires endless patience and forward planning. Sometimes when things don’t go your way, it can become quite infuriating. Over the last few centuries, several people have been killed because of disagreements during the game. Here are the bloodiest and goriest chess deaths in history.
The Italian Cannibal:
In 2014, Irish landlord Tom O’Gorman had let one of his rooms out to Italian Saverio Bellante. The two men were playing chess together and ended up arguing after O’Gorman made a foolish move which allowed Bellante to move a piece to his own advantage. The landlord was infuriated by this and called Bellante’s move “stupid and perverse”. Seeing as the Italian was becoming upset, O’Gorman apologised but Bellante didn’t believe he was being genuine and so he stabbed the Irishman and ate a part of his lung. He had intended to eat the heart, believing that the heart is the root of all evil but confused it with the lung. In court, Bellante was found guilty but was later proved not guilty on psychiatric grounds after it was revealed he suffered from severe psychosis and believed he was Jesus.
The Cheating King:
Sometime between 994-1035AD, King Cnut of Denmark, England and Norway had been playing a game of chess with Earl Ulf. The king made an illegal move which angered the Earl so much that he flipped the board and left. In true medieval style, the King sent someone off to kill the Earl as punishment for the outburst.
The Antarctic Axe Murderer:
In 1959, a Soviet researcher based in Antarctica murdered his opponent with an axe after a dispute during a chess game. Following the incident, the Soviets ruled that the Antarctic researchers could no longer be trusted to play chess and prohibited those based on the continent from participating in the game. When the Soviets began space exploration, the same rule applied and no cosmonauts were allowed to play chess on space stations for fear that there would be another chess related murder.
The Rice and Chessboard Riddle:
An Indian King asked an inventor to come up with a strategy game. The inventor came up with a game that pleased the King and as payment, asked the King for his own weight in gold or the king could put one grain of rice on the first square of the board, and double the amount of rice as he went through each square (square one: 1, square two: 2, square three: 4, square four: 8) until he had filled all 64 squares. The King chose the second option and got to the 32nd square before realising that he needed over 1.2 trillion tons of rice in order to complete the riddle. This equates to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice (eighteen quintillions, four hundred forty-six quadrillions, seven hundred forty-four trillion, seventy-three billion, seven hundred nine million, five hundred fifty-one thousand, six hundred fifteen). As most Kings do when faced with an impossible debt, the King chose to kill the inventor.