He would walk into a room and start an argument,” Walters says. “Murray was an interesting guy-he really was a character. When Turnbull moved into Thayer in 1967, he immediately stood against the grain, according to his roommate Jonathan K. Turnbull says he started playing chess at age 11 and has been playing ever since-excepting his first two years as a student at Harvard. His brother graduated from the College and the Harvard Law School. His father joined the faculty at Harvard in 1962, eventually taking the McKay chair in applied physics. Turnbull grew up in Niscayuna in upstate New York, where his father worked for General Electric Research Laboratory. But that’s too long to fit on the sign or to grab people’s attention.” Turnbull shrugs off his trademark sign proclaiming him “The Chessmaster”-a cardboard slab that he affixes to his table every day with several layers of heavy tape. “They can’t get mate in three moves, so I just start a few moves behind and catch up soon enough.” They usually come up with some bizarre idea that doesn’t pan out,” he says. “I’ve had success playing without the clock. He takes obvious pleasure in his cleverness on the board. Instead, he allows his opponent the first three moves. He runs his chess table like a business, recently moving away from timed games because, he says, they intimidate potential customers. For those five months or so, Turnbull plays in front of Au Bon Pain for 10 to 12 hours a day, often dragging slowly on a cigar.įrom his $2 games and giving private lessons, Turnbull says he will earn anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 a season. His “season” runs from sometime in May until sometime in September, depending on the weather. “You simply display your ability on the board.” “You can earn your own degree with chess, which anyone can do,” he says. Turnbull says he never believed in the value of a college degree. In spite of a peripatetic early life-growing up in an academic household, dropping out of Harvard, living homeless in Berkeley-Turnbull, a member of the Class of 1971, is today known best as “The Chessmaster” of Harvard Square. With his scruffy brown beard fading to white and a belly bulging against the buttons of his shirt, he could easily be mistaken for Santa Claus.īut it’s the chess board on the screen in front of him that is Turnbull’s most identifying feature.
Turnbull is sitting in a chair in front of his family’s Christmas tree, watching a game of chess online.
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