| May-25-11 | | Damonkeyboy: this is the guy who plays in Harvard square |
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May-25-11
 | | perfidious: <Damonkeyboy> Sure is-Murray and I had a number of battles in the years 1982-1987, though, except for the odd blitz game which wasn't for money, never at his table. |
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| Mar-04-16 | | RookFile: Rating 2390 |
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Mar-04-16
| | perfidious: Is Murray still playing in Harvard Square? He was there on my last visit, though that was summer 2000. |
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| Mar-04-16 | | RookFile: He's retired from that day to day stuff. |
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| Dec-08-16 | | zanzibar: Here's some fairly recent material about him.
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2015/07... Both the hat and the squirtgun are for the squirrels/pigeons. |
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| Apr-18-18 | | takchess: https://harvardmagazine.com/2002/11... https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/st... |
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| Apr-18-18 | | takchess: trying to figure if they still play there . Heading into town on Monday if they do. |
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| Aug-22-23 | | RookFile: This says that Murray died on April 26.
https://spiritsofcloud.com/murray-t... |
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Aug-22-23
| | perfidious: Murray was a tough opponent; the overall score of the games listed here does not tell the full story. We first met at the Boylston Masters tourney at the old Boylston Club in February 1982, then became well acquainted when I moved to Boston shortly afterwards. |
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| Sep-28-23 | | RookFile: Studied at Harvard, dropped out senior year to play chess instead. He said he simply didn't want to live the life his parents had lived. Short movie about Murray:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjO... |
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Sep-28-23
| | perfidious: Murray's path recalls that of another master I knew quite well in those days, whose father chaired a department at another Ivy League university, though so far as I know, he took a degree and lived the life of a gentleman in bygone days. |
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| Sep-29-23 | | Granny O Doul: One year at the USAT I played him and lost, so that's at least two lifetime victories. I could possibly dig it up but I remember it appeared in Chess Horizons, so I feel that relieves me of the burden. I missed him at Harvard Square, but so it goes. Rest in pieces, as the chess players say. |
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Sep-29-23
| | perfidious: There are a few more; two more games between us are buried somewhere in the mothballs (one win each), and I recall him making 6-0 one year at the USATE in Somerset, New Jersey, with one of his victims being Daniel Edelman. |
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| Jan-15-24 | | stone free or die: RE: <Murray Mauer Turnbull 1949-05-17 -- 2023-04-26> I'll have to have a look again, but couldn't find his obituary in the Boston Globe - which is surprising. I found his dob/dod and middle name on <find-a-grave> https://www.findagrave.com/memorial... <Rookfile>'s link above is now stale, but is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/2023062... <Jude Bell> wrote it. The 1949 dob lines up with Harvard '71, and him learning the moves in 1960 after a tornado went over his house in Schenectady NY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjO... (just after the poop segment) https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/st... (discovered chess at 11) . |
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| Jan-15-24 | | stone free or die: CORRECTION - <Murray *Maurer* Turnbull> <find-a-grave> almost certainly got the middle name wrong - see his 1967 Weston HS yearbook: https://archive.org/details/westonh... That's him for sure:
<MURRAY MAURER TURNBULL
“Yeah, but". . .hearty beat of the marching band. . .has chess all figured out. . .67’s anar¬ chist. . .relaxes with his shoes off in class. . . widely read in history, well-informed on world affairs. Activities: En Garde 2,3,4; V.R.C. 3,4; Chess Club 1,2, 3, 4; Nat. Merit Semi-Finalist; T.V. Quiz Team, >
Also, his family relocated from NY to MA, explaining all the family members being in the Mt. Auburn spot. . |
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| Jan-15-24 | | stone free or die: A funny little bit describing a Oct 2001 match between Turnbull and the Harvard CC ends with this snippet from the match: <<<Castling in the Square>NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2002>
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Now that Turnbull had clinched the match, the last game, against Christopher Chabris '88, a former president of the Harvard Chess Club, was anticlimactic. When Turnbull won Chabris's queen and then the game, he jumped up, fired his squirt gun, and raised his arms in a V. "Am I good or what?" he shouted. "That should be $100. I've had a long hard season, and it will be too cold after today to play until spring." The Harvard team handed him $10, and he retreated into Au Bon Pain. <"I've only been in Cambridge a few weeks," said Esserman, "and Turnbull has already won $24 from me. You can't compete with a professional blitz player. But I'll get him. I have all winter to practice."Esserman's mother raised her eyebrows in mock horror. "For this," she said, "I've sent my son to Harvard?"> > https://www.harvardmagazine.com/200... |
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Kibitzing
