Raymond Weinstein

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Raymond A. Weinstein (born April 25, 1941) is an American chess player from Brooklyn, New York. He earned the International Master title in 1962. He is currently incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital after killing a man in 1964.

1 Chess career
2 Illness
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Chess career

Weinstein attended Erasmus Hall High School, where he was two grades ahead of Bobby Fischer. He won the 1958 U.S. Junior Chess Championship in Homestead, Florida. Weinstein played a total of five times in the U.S. Chess Championship. Weinstein was on the U.S. Team that won the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad, USSR, the only time the U.S. Team has ever won that title. Weinstein tied for the gold medal in that event. Weinstein played on the U.S. Team in the 1960 World Chess Olympiad in Leipzig, East Germany.

Weinstein defeated many top U.S. chess players, including Samuel Reshevsky and Pal Benko. He never defeated Bobby Fischer, although he drew with him once (in the 1959-60 US Championship). Weinstein is a life member of the United States Chess Federation.

His best tournament result came in the 1960-1961 U.S. Championship where finished third behind Bobby Fischer and William Lombardy. As this was a zonal year, this result qualified Weinstein to play in the World Interzonal tournament. This result also gave Weinstein the automatic International Master title. Weinstein defeated Lombardy, Reshevsky, Arthur Bisguier and Robert Byrne in this tournament. The results of this tournament were Fischer 9-2, Lombardy 7-4, Raymond Weinstein 6 1/2 - 4 1/2, Bisguier, Reshevsky, James Sherwin and Charles Kalme 6-5, Benko, Hans Berliner, Robert Byrne and Anthony Saidy 4 1/2 - 6 1/2, Herbert Seidman 2 1/2 - 8 1/2.

[edit] Illness

In 1964 he went to Amsterdam to study psychology. Unfortunately, by this time he had apparently developed a mental illness, possibly schizophrenia. He was reportedly arrested for assault; Dutch writer Tim Krabbe has identified the victim as the Dutch psychology professor and International Master Johan Barendregt.^[1] Soon afterwards he was deported to the US. There, he was detained in a half-way house, where he killed his 83 year old room-mate with a razor after an argument.^[2] Weinstein was deemed incapable to stand trial, and remanded to an insane asylum, the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Manhattan's Ward's Island,^[3] where he remains to this day. A recent email states that Weinstein has been transferred to the Dunlap B section and he is seeking stronger chess opponents because he can beat all the other inmates in the asylum.

Ironically, Weinstein had been described as having a "ruthless killer instinct" for chess in a February 1964 British Chess Magazine article, before the incident took place.^[4]