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World Chess Hall of Fame
	Street view
	Location within St. Louis
Former name	U.S. Chess Hall of Fame; World Chess Hall of Fame and Sidney Samole Museum
Established	1984
Location	Central West End, St. Louis Missouri
Coordinates	38°38′39″N 90°15′40″W / 38.644301°N 90.261153°W
Type	Hall of Fame; Art museum
Public transit access	MetroBus
Website	worldchesshof.org

The World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF) is a nonprofit collecting institution in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1984, it features chess exhibits, engages in educational outreach, and maintains a list of inductees to the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and World Chess Hall of Fame.

Formerly located in New Windsor, New York; Washington, D.C.; and Miami, Florida, it moved to St. Louis on September 9, 2011.^[1] It is run by the United States Chess Trust.

The World Chess Hall of Fame is located across the street from the Saint Louis Chess Club, with which it collaborates on programming, instruction, and outreach.

The museum's permanent collection and temporary exhibitions highlight the great players, historic games, and cultural history of chess. Rotating exhibitions feature items from the permanent collection, including a 500-year-old^{[citation needed]} piece from an Egyptian game called senet, the earliest known board game; a custom-made set of chess furniture that belonged to Bobby Fischer; and the first commercial chess computer. The museum also displays two temporary exhibitions per year.

History

Steven Doyle, president of the United States Chess Federation from 1984 to 1987,^[2] founded the World Chess Hall of Fame in 1986 as the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.

It opened in 1988 in the basement of the Federation's then-headquarters in New Windsor, New York.^[1] The museum's small collection included a book of chess openings signed by Bobby Fischer;^[3] a silver set awarded to Paul Morphy, American chess player and unofficial World Champion; and cardboard plaques honoring past grandmasters.

In 1992, the U.S. Chess Trust purchased the museum and moved its contents to Washington, D.C., where it featured America's "big four" chess players: Paul Morphy, Bobby Fischer, Frank Marshall, and Samuel Reshevsky.^[4] It displayed the World Chess Championship trophy won by the United States team in 1993 as well as numerous chess boards and chess pieces. The museum gave visitors the opportunity to play against a chess computer. By 2001, the collection had grown to include numerous chess sets and boards and plaques commemorating inductees to the U.S. and World halls of fame.^[4]

In the late 1990s, Sidney Samole, former owner of Excalibur Electronics, proposed to move the hall of fame to Miami, where it would be located in a rook-shaped building constructed by Excalibur. Although Samole died in 2000, the U.S. Chess Trust accepted the proposal the following year.^[1] Reopened in 2001, it was renamed the World Chess Hall of Fame and Sidney Samole Museum.^[1]^[5] The museum continued collecting chess sets, books, tournament memorabilia, advertisements, photographs, furniture, medals, trophies, and journals until it closed in 2009.

Soon afterward, billionaire Rex Sinquefield agreed to pay to move the museum to St. Louis. He also renovated its new building, across the street from the Sinquefield-founded St. Louis Chess Club.^[1]

Hall of Fame

There are 73 members in the U.S. Hall of Fame, including Bobby Fischer, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Morphy.

There are 43 members in the World Hall of Fame, including José Raúl Capablanca, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Boris Spassky. The winner of the first Women's World Chess Championship, Vera Menchik, was the first woman to be inducted into the WCHOF in 2011.^[6]

U.S. Chess Hall of Fame inductees

The U.S. Chess Federation Recognitions Committee considers candidates for the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and sends its nominations to the U.S. Chess Trust annually. The trustees of the U.S. Chess Trust vote on who should be inducted. The induction itself takes place at the U.S. Chess Federation Awards Luncheon during the U.S. Open or at the World Chess Hall of Fame itself. The induction is almost always performed by the chairman of the U.S. Chess Trust or the chairman of the Hall of Fame Committee.

2017 members of the committee included John McCrary (chair), Frank Camaratta, John Crumiller, William John Donaldson, John Hilbert, Randy Hough, Alexey Root, Sophia Rohde, Andrew Soltis, Peter Tamburro, and Fred Wilson.^[7]

Count	Inductee	Induction year
1	Reuben Fine	1986
2	Robert Fischer	1986
3	Isaac Kashdan	1986
4	George Koltanowski	1986
5	Frank Marshall	1986
6	Paul Morphy	1986
7	Harry Pillsbury	1986
8	Sammy Reshevsky	1986
9	Sam Loyd	1987
10	Wilhelm Steinitz	1987
11	Arpad Elo	1988
12	Hermann Helms	1988
13	Al Horowitz	1989
14	Hans Berliner	1990
15	John W. Collins	1991
16	Arthur Dake	1991
17	Arnold Denker	1992
18	Gisela Gresser	1992
19	George MacKenzie	1992
20	Pal Benko	1993
21	Victor Palciauskas	1993
22	Arthur Bisguier	1994
23	Robert Byrne	1994
24	Larry Evans	1994
25	Ed Edmondson Jr.	1995
26	Fred Reinfeld	1996
27	Kenneth Harkness	1997
28	Milan Vukcevich	1998
29	Benjamin Franklin	1999
30	Edmar Mednis	2000
31	Lubomir Kavalek	2001^[8]
32	Lev Alburt	2003
33	Walter Browne	2003
34	Donald Byrne	2003
35	Anatoly Lein	2004
36	Leonid Shamkovich	2004
37	Yasser Seirawan	2006
38	Irving Chernev	2007
39	Jeremy Gaige	2007
40	Joel Benjamin	2008
41	Larry Christiansen	2008
42	Nick de Firmian	2008
43	John Fedorowicz	2009
44	Burt Hochberg	2009
45	Diane Savereide	2010
46	Jackson Showalter	2010
47	Herman Steiner	2010
48	Boris Gulko	2011^[9]
49	Andy Soltis	2011^[9]
50	Alex Yermolinsky	2012
51	Gregory Kaidanov	2013
52	Mona May Karff	2013
53	Abraham Kupchik	2014^[10]
54	Jacqueline Piatigorsky	2014^[10]
55	Alexander Shabalov	2015
56	Gata Kamsky	2016^[11]
57	Maurice Ashley	2016^[11]
58	Edward Lasker	2017^[11]
59	Bill Goichberg	2018
60	Alex Onischuk	2018
61	Max Judd	2019
62	Susan Polgar	2019
63	William Lombardy	2019
64	Rex Sinquefield	2020
65	Jeanne Sinquefield	2020
66	James Sherwin	2021
67	Frank Brady	2021
68	Daniel Willard Fiske	2022
69	James Tarjan	2022
70	John Watson	2022
71	Yury Shulman	2023
72	Lisa Lane	2023
73	William Shinkman	2023

World Chess Hall of Fame inductees

The World Chess Hall of Fame inductees are nominated by representatives of the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

Count	Inductee	Induction year
1	Jose Raul Capablanca	2001^[8]
2	Robert Fischer	2001^[8]
3	Emanuel Lasker	2001^[8]
4	Paul Morphy	2001^[8]
5	Wilhelm Steinitz	2001^[8]
6	Mikhail Botvinnik	2003
7	Tigran Petrosian	2003
8	Vasily Smyslov	2003
9	Boris Spassky	2003
10	Mikhail Tal	2003
11	Alexander Alekhine	2004
12	Max Euwe	2004
13	Anatoly Karpov	2004
14	Garry Kasparov	2005
15	Siegbert Tarrasch	2008
16	Vera Menchik	2011^[9]
17	Elisaveta Bykova	2013
18	Mikhail Chigorin	2013
19	Nona Gaprindashvili	2013
20	Maia Chiburdanidze	2014^[10]
21	Paul Keres	2014^[10]
22	Olga Rubtsova	2015
23	Lyudmila Rudenko	2015
24	Carl Schlechter	2015
25	David Bronstein	2016^[12]
26	Sonja Graf	2016^[12]
27	Howard Staunton	2016^[12]
28	Johannes Zukertort	2016
29	Paula Kalmar-Wolf	2017
30	Viktor Korchnoi	2017
31	Alla Kushnir	2017
32	Aron Nimzowitsch	2018
33	Richard Réti	2018
34	Kira Zvorykina	2018
35	Akiba Rubinstein	2019
36	Mark Taimanov	2019
37	Xie Jun	2019
38	Miguel Najdorf	2021
39	Judit Polgár	2021
40	Eugene Torre	2021
41	Jorgen Bent Larsen	2023^[13]
42	Lajos Portisch	2023^[14]
43	Susan Polgár	2023^[15]

Exhibitions

The World Chess Hall of Fame moved to St. Louis in 2011. Its permanent collection includes historical chess artifacts, as well as art and artifacts on loan from various artists and collectors.

OUT OF THE BOX: Artists Play Chess

Out of the Box was a contemporary art exhibition displayed from September 9, 2011, to February 12, 2012, and was curated by Bradley Bailey, assistant professor of modern and contemporary art history at Saint Louis University. It featured artworks that consider chess both at the formal level and at the level of actual play. The artists featured in this exhibition were Tom Friedman, Barbara Kruger, Liliya Lifanova, Yoko Ono, Gavin Turk, Diana Thater, and Guido van der Werve.^[9] On the exhibit's opening night, Dutch contemporary artist Guido van der Werve performed on a chess piano that he built. The piano sounded a note as each chess piece was played, while nine string musicians from the Saint Louis Symphony played van der Werve's score. On closing night, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis hosted an event featuring Liliya Lifanova's performance art piece Anatomy is Destiny, one of the pieces in the exhibition.

Chess Masterpieces: Highlights from the Dr. George and Vivan Dean Collection

On view from September 9, 2011, to February 12, 2012, this show celebrated the Deans' 50th year of collecting; it featured works that illustrated the development of the game of chess and the design of fine chess sets from the tenth to the early twentieth century.^[9] Sets came from Austria, Cambodia, China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kashmir, Morocco, Persia, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. Among the works displayed were pieces owned or commissioned by Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Czar Nicolas II, and the British royal family.^{[citation needed]}

Marcel Dzama: The End Game

On view from March 9, 2012, to August 12, 2012, the exhibition showed Marcel Dzama's artistic works, including films, related drawings, paintings, sculptures, and dioramas. Dzama's references and artistic influences include Dada and Marcel Duchamp. His film features characters based on chess. Dressed in geometrically designed costumes of papier-mâché, plaster, and fiberglass and wearing elaborate masks (including a quadruple-faced mask for the King), the figures dance across a checkered board to challenge their opponents in fatal interchanges.^[16]

BOBBY FISCHER: Icon Among Icons

On view from March 9, 2012, to October 7, 2012, this show featured photographs by Harry Benson, the only person to have private access to Bobby Fischer during the entire 1972 World Chess Championship match in Reykjavík, Iceland. Benson, who captured intimate images of Fischer, and delivered the news to the grandmaster that he had won the match.^[17]

Screwed Moves

On view from September 13, 2012, to February 10, 2013, this chess-inspired, site-specific wall drawing was executed by nine St. Louis artists known as The Screwed Arts Collective.^[18]

Everybody's Game: Chess in Popular Culture

On view from October 18, 2012, to April 14, 2013, this show explored how chess is represented in contemporary culture: magazine advertisements, rock music and movie posters, and other forms.^[19]

Power in Check: Chess and the American Presidency

On view from October 18, 2012, to April 21, 2013, this show explored how chess has influenced American presidents since George Washington.^[20]

Bill Smith: Beyond the Humanities

On view from March 7, 2013, to August 25, 2013, this show featured the work of Bill Smith, which explores how rules guide the creation of our world's structure and behavior. Smith used videos and constructions to show the underlying similarities of chess, nature, life, and all things—the ubiquitous patterns and interactions common to music, games, technology, animals, molecules, and the galaxy.^[21]

Prized and Played: Highlights from the Jon Crumiller Collection

On view from May 3, 2013, to September 15, 2013, this event showed more than 80 antique chess sets and other artifacts.^[22]

A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fashion and Chess

On view from October 19, 2013, to April 19, 2014, this show curated by Sofia Hedman and Serge Martynov explored the archetypes of a queen in fashion and storytelling.^[23]

Jacqueline Piatigorsky: Patron, Player, Pioneer

On view from October 25, 2013, to July 13, 2014, this show featured Jacqueline Piatigorsky, one of the best female chess players of the 1950s and 1960s, and a noted patron of the game.^[10]

Cage & Kaino: Pieces and Performances

On view from May 8, 2014, to September 21, 2014, this exhibition curated by Larry List included live performances of the work of 20th-century composer John Cage and contemporary multimedia artist, Glenn Kaino.^[10]

Strategy by Design: Games by Michael Graves

On view from May 8, 2014, to September 28, 2014, this exhibition curated by Bradley Bailey focuses on the games designed by the Michael Graves Design Group.^[10]

A Memorable Life: A Glimpse into the Complex Mind of Bobby Fischer

On view from July 24, 2014, to June 7, 2015, this exhibition explored the career of Fischer, considered one of the greatest American chess players of all time.^[24]