Deaths of Chess Players by Bill Wall
- Georgy Agzamov (1954-1986) - Russian GM fell between some rocks at a beach and died
- Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) - choked to death on a piece of meat in 1946
- Johann Allgaier (1763-1823) - dropsy
- Adolf Anderssen (1818-1879) - heart attack
- Vladimir Bagirov (1936-2000) - heart attack while playing chess in Finland
- Rosendo Balinas (1941-1998) - liver cancer
- Curt von Bardeleben (1861-1924) - threw himself out the window of his boarding home at age 63
- Thomas Barnes (1825-1874) - too much weight loss at one time
- Joseph Blackburne (1841-1924) - heart attack
- Claude Bloodgood (1924-2001) - lung cancer while in prison for life
- Samuel Boden (1826-1882) - died of typhoid fever
- Efim Bogoljubov (1889-1952) - suffered a heart attack after a simultaneous display
- Paolo Boi (1528-1598) - poisoned (murdered) in Naples
- Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995) - cancer
- Louis Bourdonnais (1795-1840) - stroke
- Gyula Breyer (1893-1921) - heart disease
- Henry Buckle (1821-1862) - typhoid fever
- Ricardo Calvo (1943-2002) - esophagus cancer
- Jose Capablanca (1888-1942) - died after watching a skittles game at the Manhattan Chess Club in 1942.
- Rudolf Charousek (1873-1900) - tuberculosis
- Mikhail Chigorin (1850-1908) - diabetes
- Edgar Colle (1897-1932) - died after an operation for a gastric ulcer
- Arthur Dake (1910-2000) - died in his sleep at age 90
- Cecil de Vere (1845-1875) - tuberculosis
- A. Deschapelles (1780-1847) - hydropsy
- Ed Edmundson (1920-1982) - died of a heart attack while playing chess on a beach in Hawaii
- Max Euwe (1901-1981) - heart attack
- Janos Flesch (1933-1983) - died in a car wreck in England
- Guillermo Garcia (1953-1990) - car wreck
- Efim Geller (1925-1998) - cancer
- Aivars Gipslis (1937-2000) - stroke while playing chess in Berlin
- Karen Grigorian (1947-1989) - suicide by jumping
- Nikolai Grigoriev (1895-1938) - appendicitis
- Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002) - stroke
- Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky (1894-1941) - died in the siege of Leningrad while on a barge
- Dawid Janowsky (1868-1927) - tuberculosis
- Klaus Junge - German army officer killed in action in 1945.
- Paul Keres (1916-1975) - died of a heart attack returning home from a tournament in 1975.
- George Koltanowski (1903-2000) - heart failure at the age of 93
- Boris Kostic (1887-1963) - blood poisoning from a scratch
- Nikolai Krylenko - executed in Stalin's purges in 1938.
- Leonid Kubbel (1891-1942) - executed by firing squad in Leningrad
- Salo Landau (1903-1944) - gassed by Nazis at a German concentration camp
- Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) - heart attack
- Paul Leonhardt (1877-1934) - died of a heart attack while playing chess at a chess club in 1934.
- George Mackenzie (1837-1891) - suicide: took an overdose of morphine
- Frank Marshall (1877-1944) - died of a heart attack after leaving a chess tournament
- Alexander McDonnell (1798-1835) - died of Bright's disease
- Edmar Mednis (1937-2002) - pneumonia and cardiac arrest
- Vera Menchik (1906-1944) - died in the German bombing of London
- Tony Miles (1955-2001) - died in his sleep at age 46; he was diabetic
- Johannes Minckwitz (1843-1901) - suicide: threw himself under a train
- Paul Morphy (1837-1884) - died of a stroke while taking a cold bath
- Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997) - heart attack
- Aron Nimzovich (1886-1935) - died of pneumonia
- Lembit Oll - suicide by jumping out of the window of his 4th story apartment
- Louis Paulsen (1833-1891) - died of diabetes
- Julius Perlis (1880-1913) - died in a mountain climb in the Alps in 1913.
- Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984) - cancer
- Vladimir Petrov (1908-1943) - died in a prison camp in Russia
- Harry Pillsbury (1872-1906) - died of syphillis
- David Przepiorka (1880-1940) - died in a mass execution outside Warsaw in 1940.
- Cecil Purdy (1906-1979) - died of a heart attack while playing chess
- Abram Rabinovich (1878-1943) - starvation
- Samuel Reshevsky (1911-1992) - heart attack
- Richard Reti (1889-1929) - died of scarlet fever
- Karl Robatsch (1928-2000) - stomach and throat cancer
- Nicholas Rossolimo (1910-1975) - fell from flight of stairs; died of head injuries
- Pierre Saint-Amant (1800-1872) - died after a fall from his carriage
- Carl Schlechter (1874-1918) - died from pneumonia and starvation
- Vladimir Simagin (1919-1968) - died of a heart attack while playing in a tournament
- Gideon Stahlberg (1908-1967) - heart attack during the 1967 Leningrad International tournament.
- Howard Staunton (1810-1874) - died of a heart attack will writing a chess book
- Leonid Stein (1934-1973) - heart attack
- Herman Steiner (1905-1955) - heart attack after a California State Championship game
- Alexei Suetin (1926-2001) - heart attack after a chess tournament
- Mikhail Tal (1936-1992) - kidney failure
- Mikhail Tchigorin (1850-1908) - died of diabetes
- Karel Treybal - died a victim of the Nazis in 1941.
- Alexi Troitzky (1866-1942) - died of starvation during the siege of Leningrad
- Abe Turner (1924-1962) - stabbed 9 times in the back by a fellow employee at the Chess Review office
- Alvis Vitolins (1938-1997) - suicide by jumping
- Daniel Yanovsky (1925-2000) - cancer
- Frederick Yates (1884-1932) - died in his sleep from a leak in a faulty gas pipe connection
- Alexander Zaitsev - died of thrombosis as a consequence of a leg operation in 1971.
- Johann Zukertort (1842-1888) - died of a stroke while playing chess at a London coffee-house
- Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) - committed suicide.