10 Interesting Stories From The World Of Chess

10. The Criminal Who Gamed The Rating System

For any unfamiliar with the rating system of chess, a very basic explanation is that your "rating" is represented by a number, with higher representing a stronger player. When you win, you gain ratings points and when you lose, your rating lowers.

A criminal named Claude Bloodgood managed to achieve the second highest rating in the USA at the time through either scamming the system or (as he states it) simply playing the only opposition he was allowed. Since he was in prison for life, the only opponents available to him were other inmates, several of whom he had taught to play. As well as playing correspondence games, he was far and away the strongest chess player within the prison system and as such his rating continued to rise.

It reached such a level that had he not been incarcerated, he would have to have been invited to the highest-level chess tournament in the country at the time. Bloodgood insisted he had not cheated his rating in any way and instead pointed out that the current system was prone to exploitation in circumstances like his own.

The ratings system was altered to account for situations like his. Bloodgood died in 2004, still behind bars.