Abe Turner

Who was Abe Turner?

Abe Turner was an American chess master. He had a chess rating over 2400 and played several times in the U.S. Chess Championship. He was best known as a blitz chess hustler, and was one of few masters who had a winning record against Bobby Fischer. The games were when Fischer was 14, which was the same year Fischer won his first U.S. Championship. In fact, his last round draw with Turner in the 1957 Championship clinched first for the young Fischer.

Turner was born in New York City, learning how to play chess in 1943 at a naval hospital while recovering from shrapnel wounds inflicted during World War II. It was said Turner played chess mostly by grabbing a pawn and swapping pieces to reach an endgame. He frequented the Chess and Checkers Club of New York in Times Square next to the New Amsterdam Theatre, better known as the "flea house," where anyone could play chess for ten cents an hour. Fischer also attended the club and was a student of Turner's. Turner placed second in the Manhattan Chess Club championship on five occasions. He considered his best performance to be fourth place at the U.S. Open at Long Beach, California in 1955, but tied for first shortly after at San Diego with William Lombardy and James Sherwin.