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Chessville
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The Life and Legend of Claude F. Bloodgood Part I: The Life by Robert T. Tuohey
Claude Bloodgood, I dare say, was something of an enigma to all who knew him. This very singular individual wove about himself such a web of fact and fiction that no researcher to date has been able to untangle, to penetrate its weave. Finally, most just wind up caught in it. In this two-part article (the second installment coming in two months), I’ll take a different tack: here, I’ll present what we know to be true, and in the next Past Pawns, in all it’s romantic detail, Mr. Bloodgood’s version.
Modern society (forgive the oxymoron) is indeed a dragnet. From womb to tomb, the omniscient eye of Big Brother follows us, dogs us, tracking and recording our every step. It’s a very curious fact, then, that the first facts concerning Claude Bloodgood don’t begin to surface until the late 1950’s … But lest I should “run before my horse to market” (to quote the best of the Bard’s deceivers, Richard III), let me list, or, better said, post, my little army of facts, letting them stand, few though they be, as scattered sign-posts and sentinels upon this uncharted wild. Tournament Record: 1957 – 1961 During this five year period, Bloodgood was a very active, and successful, participant in the chess tournament scene of Virginia. His list of OTB victories is impressive (listed in the article by Don Wedding, see Notes, below).
As if this weren’t enough, Bloodgood went in for correspondence chess (CC) as well, again racking up some nice wins. By 1958 he’s involved with CC to the point of being a key organizer for the All-Service Postal Chess Club (ASPCC) tournament for that year. Here’s a 1958 OTB win; the notes are from Bloodgood’s The Tactical Grob (now in public-domain and free to download) Bloodgood,
C. - Trefzer
Prison Record: 1961- 2001 Although we lack much in the way of details (as is often the case with Bloodgood), by the early 1960’s he had, evidently, entered into a criminal lifestyle ~ and his efforts here certainly cannot be deemed successful. From 1962-69 Bloodgood was almost continuously in prison: 1962-64 and 1965-67 for fourth degree burglary, and 1968-69 for forgery. The 1968 forgery charge was brought against him by his own mother (he would claim, as we shall see next issue, that she was only his step-mother), Margaret Bloodgood. Just prior to the time in question, Bloodgood’s father, Claude sr., had died, leaving his son a mere 100 dollars. Bloodgood felt there was much more money due him (again, we shall see why in the next installment), and that somehow his (step) mother had cheated him of it. In the midst of the 1968 forgery trial, in full rage and before the entire courtroom, Bloodgood threatened to kill his accuser, Margaret Bloodgood, if he were convicted. He was convicted, and served one year. Shortly after his release in 1968, Margaret Bloodgood was found brutally murdered. Claude Bloodgood was, naturally, the prime suspect and was soon arrested. Under intense police interrogation, Bloodgood confessed to the crime (at his trial, however, he would retract this admission, claiming duress and coercion). The prosecuting attorney, Franklin A. Swartz, described the case against Bloodgood as “absolutely overwhelming”. The jury not only agreed, but did so with less than an hour’s deliberation. Further, due to the violence of the murder and the relationship of the defendant to the slain, they recommended the death penalty be imposed (Virginia at the time used the electric chair). The judge concurred. Claude Frizzell Bloodgood III was sentenced to imprisonment in the maximum security Powhatan Correctional Facility until death by electrocution.
Bloodgood’s time as a death-row inmate was, however, far from idle. First, there were legal appeals, various and interminable, to be investigated and filed. Second, seeing as postal costs for condemned prisoners were footed by the state (so as to not inhibit the aforementioned defense work), Bloodgood seized the loophole therein and began what can only be termed a truly monumental correspondence chess career. Within weeks, sacks of mail, literally, began arriving for prisoner no. 99432. By mid-1971, Bloodgood was juggling some 2000 CC games! Here’s a quick crush CC from 1972. C. Bloodgood - F. Ervin
Ouch!! It was also during this extremely uncertain period (the writ of execution could have been signed at any time) that Bloodgood began his work as a chess writer. Starting with brief analyses of some of his more interesting CC efforts, Bloodgood would soon have entire articles in various chess publications. In late 1970 his first book, The Tactical Grob is published. The Tactical Grob is universally recognized as a classic work on this minor opening (and, further, secures Bloodgood’s reputation as a master player). Really, in many ways, this fine little work is a “model chess book”: (1) the author has extensive master-level playing experience with the opening, and (2) the exposition (prose and examples) is lucid (i.e., brief and yet incisive). The 1972 Supreme Court ruling against state-imposed capital punishment, and the Virginia Legislature’s election to abide, simultaneously saved Bloodgood’s life (if a life-sentence can be called life) and killed his CC career (hey, man, the postage for 2000 letters per month will damn near kill you…) Now, for a man like Bloodgood, life, any life, without chess – well, that’s cruel and unusual! Well, what to do? The VAPEN Gambit Including his previous convictions, Bloodgood had now spent some seven years within various Virginia penal institutions. As with any hardcore, habitual offender, of necessity, Bloodgood had learned the ropes, always tricky and dangerous, of surviving behind bars. Bloodgood had, however, taken in more much than this: a hierarchy of contacts, from guards to wardens, had been cultivated. The result was that in so far as a convicted murderer may be trusted by prison authorities, Bloodgood was. And a bit more… This network was absolutely essential to Bloodgood as he set-up the Virginia Penitentiary Chess Program (VAPEN) in 1972. For the next two years, Powhatan inmates were treated to the opportunity of learning the nuances of the Royal Game from the author of The Tactical Grob, possibly playing a game or two against the master, and competing against each other in tournaments. The whole thing went so darn well, in fact, there was even some talk of sending a team of prisoners to an “outside” chess tournament. Why imagine the good public relations! “Progressive reform”, and what-not! Of course, arrangements would have to be made … Thus, with the flimsy pretext of organizing details for such an event, Bloodgood and another convicted murderer (Lewis Capleaner), were let out on a day-long furlough (not the first) in the custody of a single guard (one George Winslow). That the two escaped was never disputed, the point of contention being, rather, why. The convicts claimed that Winslow had brought them to his home and demanded the pair rob a local gambling house – threatening reprisals, once the two were back behind bars, if they didn’t. Talk about a zugzwang! The chess-playing cons refused and a violent quarrel ensued: in a panic, and with no plans and six bucks between them, Bloodgood and Capleaner over-powered Winslow, hand-cuffed him to his bed, and hit the road (incidentally, stealing the man’s car, and somehow or other, picking up a couple of local floozies along the way). Winslow gave the short version: the two had escaped. Though brief (lasting just a few days), the man-hunt was wild, covering nearly all the states of the lower Delta. Once Bloodgood and Capleaner were safely locked up again, the inevitable combo followed: VAPEN was shut down, a lot of prison officials were fired or retired, and Virginia Corrections was roundly criticized as irresponsible.
Long-term Damage Control During the next 15 years or so, prisoner 99432 was restricted to a very limited range of chess activities: a handful of CC games, a few published articles, and whatever OTB opponents found themselves checkmated with him in Powhatan. However, slowly but steadily (and somewhat miraculously, considering the escape fiasco), Bloodgood again manages to attain to the position of “model prisoner” in the eyes of his keepers. His fellow prisoners know him to be friendly and generous. In short, everybody likes Claude. And in a chess game, particularly speed, the man is unbeatable. The Neo-VAPEN Gambit: How I Became a Super GM, by Claude F. Bloodgood
Conjectures abound. Bloodgood’s supporters, for example his long-time correspondent and friend Don Wedding, would maintain that this was a legitimate chess activity Bloodgood arranged to benefit his fellow inmates. The detractors, however, merely scoff, labeling the second VAPEN as yet another failed Bloodgood scam. Finally, there is even some opinion that VAPEN II was primarily a Bloodgood hoax: old Claude just wanted to show what a bunch of potzers run the United States Chess Federation … Well, here’s how it worked: with the bit of state money granted, Bloodgood had a bunch of cheap chess sets bought, registered his 50 or so members with the USCF, getting himself tournament director status as well, and then sat the VAPEN boys down for a bit of rated OTB. Well, more than “ a bit” … You see, when you’re locked up 24/7, and the entrance fee is zip (“I know the TD, he’s a pal of mine.”), and the playing hall is on the next floor (“Yeah, cellblock C ~ fer chess.”), your games-scores can pile up real fast. And indeed they did. Within any given month, on cellblock C of the Powhatan Correctional Facility, the VAPEN chess club (with TD Bloodgood pushing g4 on board 1) would finish more rated tourneys than were played on the whole eastern seaboard that year. Man, talk about racking up them rating points … By 1996, Bloodgood’s USCF rating was 2702. Huh!? Yeah, read’em and weep, pal: 2702. That meant that Claude F. Bloodgood (aka prisoner no. 99432) was (1) a super Grand Master, (2) rated no. 2 in the U.S. (some joker named Gata Kamsky stole first place), and (3) entitled to a place on the U.S. Olympic chess team. Huh?? As far back as 1958, Bloodgood had warned USCF officials of a serious statistical flaw in their rating system (an “inflation error” resulting from “closed pool sampling” ) ~ but who the heck’s gonna listen to a guy who plays the Grob? And so nothing was done… Until Bloodgood became a GM – under their system. The USCF’s answer was as simple as it was bureaucratic: they erased Bloodgood’s name from the ratings lists. Now that’s ingratitude for you. GM Bloodgood, however, got a tremendous laugh out of the entire affair. On the serious side, during these years Bloodgood published his second and third books (The Nimzovich Attack: The Norfolk Gambits, and The Blackburne-Hartlaub Gambits), with Chess Digest, Inc. Both of these works are of the same high quality as The Tactical Grob. The Captive King in Decline His last two books and the ratings hoax proved, however, to be something of a last hurrah for Bloodgood: from 1997 until his death in 2001 he was confined to the Medical Unit in Powhatan Prison, suffering from a steadily worsening lung condition. “My health has got real bad,” he told Julian Borger, a reporter who interviewed him in 1999. “I can’t walk four or five steps before I start wheezing like a son-of-a-bitch.” Despite these disabilities Bloodgood continued, propped up in bed or sitting in his state-provided wheelchair, to write and play CC until three months before his death. Claude Fizzell Bloodgood III died August 4, 2001. ________________________________________________________________________________ Notes 1. Regarding the pics of Bloodgood, both are posted at numerous sites around the web. Despite several inquiries (for example, to High Beam Research), I was unable to determine any original copyrights. Thus, I believe them both to be in public domain. 2. For all things Dragnet visit the wonderful http://www.badge714.com/ ( you know, I can never quite decide if I want to shake Joe Friday’s hand or give him a sock in that mug of his …) 3. Of the various Bloodgood articles I came across in my research, only the following can be recommended:
4. The Powhatan photos are from the prison's homepage http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/default.htm. 5. Here’s a pgn of 104 Bloodgood games.
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