12 Chess Players Who Went Crazy And What Really Happened to Them

If you have played chess for a long time or even just started, you have probably heard of some chess players who went crazy despite their brilliance, and if you are as curious as me, you probably wondered whether that’s actually possible.

Well, I did dig into the whole thing, and after lots and lots of research, I managed to compile a list of some chess players who went crazy and what really happened to them.

Bobby Fischer
Paul Morphy
Aron Nimzowitsch
Wilhelm Steinitz
Carlos Torre
Vasyl Ivanchuk
Alexander Alekhine
Akiba Rubinstein
Rosendo Balinas Jr.
José Raúl Capablanca
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
Mikhail Tal

The story of each and every one of them is quite amazing, so let’s go over them briefly.

12 Chess Players Who Went Crazy And What Really Happened To Them

a photo of a chess player to show the chess players who went crazy

There are 12 chess players with a reputation for them going crazy; however, it may be more complicated than that because each one has a different story.

So, let’s take a closer look at each of these players’ history:

Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer is one of the most brilliant chess players, he will forever be an icon and a legend in chess, and his contributions to chess changed the game and how we play it, but he was also one of the players with the most complicated history.

He was born on March 9, 1943, in Chicago; his father was Paul Felix Nemenyi, who was a trained mechanical engineer, and Regina Wender; however, on Fischer’s certificate, it is listed that his father is Hans Gerhardt Fischer, who married Regina in Moscow in 1933.

It was after Regina’s death that the FBI records revealed that the biological father was Paul Felix.

He also had an older sister Joan who bought him his first chess set, and they learned the moves together, and his interest in chess started.

Bobby was expelled from school because he kicked the principal, and then he dropped out of high school, so you can say that he did not adjust well to the school system; instead, he became obsessed with chess.

At the age of 13, his mother took him to three mental health professionals; she also consulted Dr. Reuben Fine, a world-renowned chess grandmaster and psychoanalyst.

Fine wrote in his book that Bobby came to see him about six times, and each time and they would play chess; Fine had to win so he could maintain a relationship with Fischer.

He mentions how irritated and furious Fischer becomes after he loses, saying that he tricked him and walked out.

Fischer had a complicated relationship with his mother; she was financially desperate because she was raising Bobby and Joan by herself while she was an immigrant in the 1940s and the 1950s, so naturally, it wasn’t easy at all; she even attempted to place Joan with another family.

The arrangements of giving her daughter to another family fell through, and she was able to take her back; however, the mother in the foster family had her doubts about Regina and reported her to the FBI in 1942.

It was early in the cold war, and Regina and Hans Gerhardt had lived in Russia for a long time, so it’s no surprise that the FBI would investigate her.

The reports’ results reveal that Regina had unusual psychology; Regina passed away in 1997 due to cancer, and she was followed by her daughter Joan a year later, and these two deaths affected Bobby Fischer.

Bobby was argumentative, socially awkward, provocative, and unhappy from early childhood, and not due to chess. Sometimes his frustration and irritation would turn into violence; he even once assaulted a former member of the worldwide church of god because he felt that this person betrayed his trust.

So, to put it simply, Fischer didn’t go crazy due to chess; he suffered from a mental illness all his life but was never treated properly.

Bobby had a disappointingly short chess career, as he quit playing professional chess after winning his world championship title in 1972, and while he briefly played here and there (and played an unofficial rematch against Spassky later), he basically quit playing chess after becoming world champion.

I explain in depth why bobby quit playing chess after becoming the world champ here, so make sure to check it out.

Until today, Players of all levels study and analyze Bobby’s games for insights and to become better players. People can fight about his personality and mentality as much as they like, but no one can deny that Bobby Fischer was one of the best chess players in history.

His most famous game was dubbed as “the game of the century”, and he played it when he was only 13 years old!

Paul Morphy

Paul Morphy was the first American chess player considered to be an unofficial world champion.

He was born on June 22, 1837, and stopped playing chess by 1860. He learned how to play chess by watching other people play chess, and due to his remarkable memory, he was able to record every factor in his entire game.

His big breakthrough came in 1857 when he won nine out of ten games while he was only twenty. Following that, Morphy got bored and only wanted to play matches where he would take the black pieces without his f pawn.

Still, no one accepted this, so he turned to law, which became his professional career path; then; the U.S. Civil War happened soon after, but there are no records or proof of him serving in the military.

Morphy was believed to be mentally unstable after his career in law went to nothing after the Civil War. He stopped playing chess professionally, so he had nothing left in his life, and he spent ten years talking to himself. He died peacefully at the age of 47.

Paul Morphy was never declared insane, and there is no proof of him being mentally unstable; some people in his time believed that he was deranged, but he was always harmless and lived quietly in his home until he died.

However, his family did try to place him in a sanitarium hoping that he would get better, but there were no signs of him being clinically insane.

Aron Nimzowitsch

Aron Nimzowitsch was a Latvian-Danish chess player, one of the best players in the 1920s and early 1930s. He studied philosophy, and even his approach to chess became part of hypermodernism which is a part of philosophy.

He began his serious career in chess in Berlin and played in German tournaments and clubs. Then, Nimzowitsch moved to Denmark after the Russian Revolution in 1917, a turning point in his chess career. He even played his most famous game there.

Aron was in the baltic war zone, and he escaped being drafted into one of the armies by faking madness by insisting that there was a fly on his head, and he succeeded by running to Berlin.

He spent two years publishing his book called My System, which revealed his methods for winning complicated games.

He got great results or near-perfect points in all or most of his games in tournaments, and soon he earned the confidence to challenge Capablanca for the world championship. Still, he couldn’t because he could not gain enough funding; instead, Capablanca played Alekhine and lost the crown.

In 1935, Nimzowitsch passed away from pneumonia in Copenhagen; he was only 48. In conclusion, Aron Nimzowitsch did not go crazy due to chess or at all; it was closer to a rumor.

Check out one of his brilliant games below (and my favorite)

Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian chess player; he was the first official world champion and held the title for quite a while, actually, from 1886 to 1894. He learned to play chess at the age of 12, but he was only playing chess as a hobby. He thought of chess as a potential career once he was in his twenties.

Steinitz was known for his bold techniques and strategies and dominated the Vienna tournament in 1861. He was asked to represent Austria in the London tournament in 1862, and he was in sixth place. He challenged Dubois immediately after the tournament and defeated him; he was undefeated for over 30 years after that match.

Wilhelm Steinitz was the number one player in the world by 1873; he started to prove his new theories, such as creating outposts for the knights, the importance of the pawn structure, the accumulation of small advantages, and the bishop pair.

In 1894, a relatively new chess player named Emanuel Lasker, who had some recent success in the tournaments, sent Steinitz a challenge; he also sent a match invitation to Tarrasch, the 3rd best player in the world at the time, but Tarrasch declined the invitation.

Steinitz went on record saying that he would win the match against Lasker without a doubt, and Lasker shocked the whole world by actually defeating Steinitz, so that was the end of Steinitz’s 32 undefeated match streak.

However, Wilhelm won the 1894 tournament after his first loss and won the brilliancy prize in 1895.

He tried to win his title back as a world champion from Lasker from late 1896 to early 1897, and Lasker defeated him again in the rematch with an even better score, and they would play in two other tournaments with no change in the results.

After he tried to reclaim his title but had no success in doing so, he suffered from a mental breakdown in Russia and was confined to a Russian sanitarium.

Here is one of his most famous chess games, Lasker vs. Steinitz 1896, ending in a classically brilliant Steinitz move:

Carlos Torre

Carlos Torre is the most remarkable player in Mexican history; he started playing chess when he was only five years old. His family moved to New Orleans to avoid the Mexican Revolution, and he played and improved in clubs in the United States.

Torre participated in the Moscow tournament at a young age. In that tournament, he tied with José Raúl Capablanca and defeated Emmanuel Lasker; he quickly became one of the best chess players of his time, and he was the first Mexican chess player to get the title of international grandmaster.

When Carlos Torre was 22 years old, he retired from tournaments due to a “nervous breakdown” Then he retired from chess entirely and spent the last years of his life in a nursing home.

Also, when the journalists began to ask about his retirement from chess while he had such a promising future, he replied,

“Well, my brother asked me to help him out in his drugstore and told me I could make some free money. I never spent a cent, but the work in the drugstore challenges the brain less than chess does. Also, I retired from the competition, not from study. To this day. I still study the game”.

Check out his most famous game, with a spectacular Queen Sacrifice:

Vasyl Ivanchuk

Vasyl Ivanchuk is a Ukrainian grandmaster and was the number two player in the world on three different occasions in 1991, 1992, and 2007.

He won the European junior chess championship in 1987 and became an international master, and he also won the New York Open, defeating many grandmasters.

In 1991, there was one of the strongest tournaments in the world because it had 14 world-class grandmasters, and Vasyl Ivanchuk won with a 9.5/13 score, which is remarkable, and was ahead of many GMs such as Garry Kasparov, Karpov, Anand, Kamsky, Timman, and others.

He even played with Kasparov and defeated him due to his advantage in the opening. On move 23, Ivanchuk came up with an unusual and unpredictable sacrifice, and this led to his victory, leaving Ivanchuk as the number-two player in the world behind Kasparov.

People who know Vasyl Ivanchuk say that he is an eccentric genius and a little weird, but in a nice way, and that he lives on his own planet. He didn’t go crazy; he just has the reputation of being a crazy genius, and that’s it.

Check out his game against Topalov which tells a lot about how brilliant he really is:

Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alekhine is one of the greatest chess players of all time, and he held the fourth official world champion for 17 years. You can find him in any list of the top 10 best players of all time; he had a unique ability to plan and have tactics on the board like no one else in his time.

Alexander learned how to play chess when he was six years old and started to get involved in the game a couple of years later.

What makes Alexander Alekhine unique is what drew him into really playing chess which was a simultaneous blindfold exhibition, and by the time he was 12 years old, he could play chess blindfolded.

He also started to accomplish success in tournaments and took first place at the all-Russian Amateur tournament. In 1914, Alekhine tied first with Nimzowitsch in the All-Russian Masters tournament, and he placed third behind Lasker (the world champion) and Capablanca.

Alexander was in Manheim winning a Tournament, but world war l started, and the tournament was stopped, and he returned home after a few weeks. So, in 1915, Alekhine started working as a medical assistant in the army, and during 1919-1921, he worked as a lawyer in various Soviet institutions.

He finally returned in 1921 and played in tournaments in Triberg Budapest, and he was undefeated because, for over forty years, Alexander spent 12 hours a day analyzing and playing chess.

He beat Capablanca in the world championship, and after that, he started to take his life for granted and became a drunkard. Many players reported that Alekhine used to arrive for his games smelling like alcohol. He even reached the point that he once peed his pants during a match because he was too drunk to reach the toilet.

Alexander had such a tragic ending after being one of the greatest players of all time, he was assassinated in Portugal, and his body was found hunched over a chess board.

Here is what is considered by many (including myself) to be his best chess game of all time:

Akiba Rubinstein

Akiba Rubinstein was a Polish chess player born on December 1, 1880. He was a child prodigy who quickly rose through the ranks and became one of the world’s top players by the age of 20.

Rubinstein’s style of play was characterized by his exceptional endgame skills, and he was particularly adept at playing with knights. He was known for his sharp mind and had a reputation for playing brilliant games.

He won several important tournaments in his youth, including the All-Russian Amateur Tournament in 1903 and the San Sebastian Tournament in 1911. He also performed well in international competitions, including the Chess Olympiad, where he helped lead the Polish team to a bronze medal in 1930.

Rubinstein’s career was cut short by mental health problems. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1920 and was forced to withdraw from the Hastings tournament. He made a comeback in 1922 and continued to play at a high level for several more years, but his mental health problems continued to plague him. He was institutionalized several times throughout his life and eventually retired from chess in 1932.

Rosendo Balinas Jr.

Rosendo Balinas Jr. began playing chess at a young age and quickly showed promise, winning the Philippine National Chess Championship in 1961. He went on to represent the Philippines in numerous international chess competitions, including the Chess Olympiad.

Balinas was known for his aggressive and tactical playing style, as well as his ability to calculate variations quickly and accurately. He was also a prolific writer on the game of chess, authoring several books and articles on chess strategy and tactics.

He struggled with personal problems throughout his life, including financial difficulties and health issues. He reportedly suffered from a heart condition and was forced to retire from competitive chess in the mid-1980s due to failing health.

There are some reports that suggest that Balinas may have suffered from mental health issues, potentially related to his intense involvement in the game of chess. However, these reports are largely anecdotal, and there is no concrete evidence to suggest that chess directly caused his mental health problems.

In any case, Balinas passed away in 1998 at the age of 56 due to liver cancer, leaving behind a legacy as one of the greatest Filipino chess players of all time.

José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca was a Cuban chess player born on November 19, 1888. He was one of the greatest players of all time and is widely considered to be one of the most naturally talented players in the history of the game.

He learned to play chess at the age of four and quickly showed an aptitude for the game. He won his first Cuban Championship at the age of 12 and went on to win the tournament several more times in his youth. He then set his sights on the world championship and won the title in 1921, defeating Emanuel Lasker.

Capablanca was known for his positional and endgame mastery, as well as his ability to simplify complex positions into easily understandable ones. He was a dominant player in the early 20th century and held the world championship title until 1927 when he was defeated by Alexander Alekhine.

There is no evidence to suggest that Capablanca went crazy as a result of playing chess. He did suffer from health problems in his later years, including high blood pressure and circulatory issues, and passed away in 1942 at the age of 53.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is a former president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and a controversial figure in the world of chess.

He was born on April 5, 1962, in Elista, Kalmykia, a region of Russia. He became the president of the Kalmykia Republic in 1993 and held the position for 17 years.

One of the most unusual aspects of Ilyumzhinov’s tenure as FIDE president was his claim that he had been abducted by aliens in 1997. He stated in interviews that he was taken aboard a spaceship by humanoid beings and had a conversation with them. He has also claimed to have psychic powers and to have been in contact with extraterrestrial beings on multiple occasions.

Clearly, there is no evidence to support Ilyumzhinov’s claims of alien abduction, and many have speculated that he may have been under the influence of drugs or suffering from a mental illness at the time. However, Ilyumzhinov has consistently denied these claims and maintains that his experience was real.

It is unclear whether Ilyumzhinov’s involvement in chess had any direct impact on his mental health or his claims of extraterrestrial contact. However, his tenure as FIDE president was marked by controversy and allegations of corruption, including allegations of corruption, human rights abuses, and mismanagement, which may have contributed to his eventual downfall.

In 2018, Ilyumzhinov resigned from his position as FIDE president after being placed on a US Treasury Department sanctions list for his alleged support of the Syrian government. He was replaced by Arkady Dvorkovich, a former Russian deputy prime minister.

Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal was a Latvian chess player who became the eighth World Chess Champion in 1960 at the age of 23 and held the title until 1961. He was known for his aggressive and daring playing style, which earned him the nickname “The Magician from Riga.”

Tal was born on November 9, 1936, in Riga, Latvia. He began playing chess at a young age and quickly demonstrated a talent for the game. In 1957, he won the Latvian Championship, and soon after, he became an international grandmaster.

His playing style was characterized by his willingness to take risks and sacrifice material for the sake of attacking his opponent’s king. He was known for his creativity and unpredictability, and his games were often exciting and entertaining for spectators.

He suffered from a variety of health problems throughout his life, including kidney disease and liver problems, which were likely exacerbated by his heavy drinking and smoking habits. He also struggled with depression and other mental health issues, which may have been related to the stress and pressure of high-level chess competitions.

There is some speculation that Tal’s mental health may have been negatively affected by his intense dedication to chess; however, Tal himself claimed that he did not believe his mental health problems were related to his chess playing and that he had simply always been prone to melancholy.

Despite his health issues, Tal continued to play chess at a high level for many years. He won the Soviet Championship six times and competed in numerous international tournaments. He remained a beloved figure in the chess world until his death in 1992 at the age of 55.

Does Chess Really Cause Mental Health Problems?

There is no clear evidence to suggest that playing chess causes mental health problems in and of itself. If anything, chess offers some great cognitive benefits as explained here.

However, like any other competitive activity, chess can be a high-pressure environment, and players may experience stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges as a result.

Chess players, especially at the elite level, often devote a significant amount of time and energy to the game and may feel pressure to perform at a consistently high level. The stress of competition, combined with the isolation and social pressures of the chess world, can sometimes lead to mental health problems.

However, it is important to note that not all chess players experience mental health challenges and that mental health problems are often complex and multifaceted.

Other factors, such as genetics, environment, and life experiences, may play a larger role in the development of mental health issues.

It is also worth noting that chess can have positive effects on mental health. Studies have shown that playing chess can improve cognitive function, enhance memory and concentration, and even reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Like any other activity, the impact of chess on mental health will depend on a range of individual factors, and it is important to approach it with balance and moderation.

Mental Health Tips for Chess Players

Chess is a mentally demanding game, and chess players, like any other competitive athletes, can benefit from taking steps to protect their mental health, especially when playing at a competitive level.

So, here are some tips for chess players to follow to protect their mental health:

Take breaks: It’s essential to take breaks between games to rest your mind and recharge. This will help you stay focused and alert during games.
Stay hydrated: Drinking enough water is essential to keep your brain functioning optimally. Make sure you stay hydrated during tournaments or long matches.
Get enough sleep: A good night’s sleep is crucial for mental clarity and cognitive performance. Make sure you get enough sleep before and after a tournament or a long match.
Practice self-care: Take time to engage in activities that promote relaxation and well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with friends and family.
Manage stress: Develop healthy coping strategies to deal with stress, such as deep breathing or mindfulness exercises.
Don’t neglect physical exercise: Exercise has been shown to have a positive impact on mental health. Regular physical activity can help reduce stress and improve mood.
Set realistic expectations: Recognize that not every game will be a win and that losing is a natural part of the competition. Set realistic goals and focus on the process of improvement rather than just winning.
Avoid negative self-talk: Be kind to yourself and avoid negative self-talk. Focus on your strengths and what you can do to improve your game.
Connect with others: Chess can be a solitary game, but it’s essential to connect with others and build a support network. Joining a chess club or online community can help you connect with like-minded individuals.
Seek professional help: If you’re struggling with mental health issues such as anxiety or depression, seek professional help. A mental health professional can help you develop coping strategies and improve your overall well-being.
Maintain balance: Ensure that chess is just one part of your life and that you are engaging in other activities that bring you joy and fulfillment.

Remember that taking care of your mental health is just as important as improving your chess skills. By taking these steps, you can protect your mental health and enjoy the game of chess for years to come.

12 Chess Players Who Went Crazy And What Really Happened to Them