Humphrey Bogart: an expert at chess & an arbiter, besides a movie star

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  • Humphrey Bogart: an expert at chess & an arbiter, besides a movie star

    The link below shows a snippet of a scene from the 1942 movie Casablanca, where Humphrey Bogart's character Rick is pondering the moves for the black side of a position that can be reached from the French Defense. The board showed a position from a variation (i.e. the Chatard-Alekhine Attack) that Bogart himself was playing in a correspondence game in real life, at the time. Also, Bogart tried to include scenes about chess in films that he acted in, whenever he could, as well as choosing the positions (or moves) that were depicted in a chess game or scene that could only arise from moves that weren't nonsensical:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxnxhEzju58

    A Chessgames Biography about Bogart in the link that follows (which includes 4 of his chess games, a photo and a link to a wiki about Bogart, among other things) shows that he was an arbiter; also, one Google AI search result has shown me that Bogart was a remarkably strong amateur/tournament-level player (nearly master strength) who used to hustle chess for loose change in New York parks and Coney Island, before his acting career took off:

    https://www.chessgames.com/player/humphrey_bogart.html

    Three photos of Bogart and his wife, actress Lauren Bacall, concentrating on a game of chess:

    https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hu...ortBy=relevant
    Last edited by Kevin Pacey; Friday, 7th August, 2026, 06:22 AM. Reason: Adding link at end of Post
    Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
    Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer

  • #2
    Hey, Kevin, great post!

    Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) was a multi-talented man, to be sure. 'Chess Life' magazine published an article about Bogart and other Hollywood people of the 1930s-1960s, who loved chess. Authors GM Arnold Denker and Larry Parr later included this material in their wonderful book 'The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories' (Hypermodern Press, 1995); I strongly recommend this book. IM Herman Steiner (1905-1955), a former U.S. champion, and a close friend of GM Denker, was the key chess instructor to the stars in southern California, from his home; Steiner has his own chapter in the Denker / Parr book.

    Bogart was also a low handicap golfer. Golf and chess are my two sporting passions, as a player. So, between Bogart's chess, golf, and very fine acting, he is my favorite Hollywood star!!

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    • #3
      Hi Kevin, good to see you posting. And hi Frank, this reminds me of some of our old conversations. The best chess rating I achieved was 1868 while the best handicap I reached in golf was 11. I have a grand total of two master scalps in chess while my best round of golf was a 76 on a par 72. Not in Bogie's league, and not in yours if I recall. Has there ever been a chess master who played scratch golf? Play it again Sam...

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