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Abe Turner (b.1924-d.1962 in New York) was a chess master who was rated over 2400 and played several times in the U.S. Chess Championship. He was best known as a chess hustler who played blitz chess for money.

Abe Turner learned how to play chess in 1943 at a Naval hospital while recovering from shrapnel wounds inflicted during the Second World War. He frequented a chess club in Times Square next to the New Amsterdam Theatre, The Chess and Checkers Club of New York, better known as the "flea house", where anyone could come and play chess for ten cents an hour. Bobby Fischer also hung out there. It is said Turner played chess mostly by grabbing a pawn and swapping pieces to reach an endgame.

Death

Abe Turner was found stabbed to death in the basment of a West Side buliding where he had been working as a clerk for Al Horowitz for the magazine Chess Review. He had been stabbed nine times and his body was placed inside a safe. He was found by the superintendent of the building later that afternoon. After the body was discovered the police arrested a clerk-typist employed by the publication. The suspect said he killed Turner and dragged the body along a corridor to the safe that was open in the basement. The basement was used as a store room and a space for lab equipment. The suspect said he had thrown the knife into Central Park. It was never found. He was quoted as saying he killed Mr. Turner because Secret Service told him to. Abe Turner had only gotten off work half an hour before his body was found. He was 38, never married and lived with his father.

Quote

"If I lost 25 pounds I think I could beat anybody in the world."-Turner while being interviewed by Johnny Carson in 1962.