I could be wrong…
Amina Abakarova, a 40-year-old female chess player and chess coach from the Russian Republic of Dagestan, poisoned another female player during a chess tournament in Makhachkala. This is unethical, cheating, and really poor sportsmanship.
Surveillance footage from the Dagestan Classical Chess Championship showed Abakarova spreading a substance later identified as mercury on the chess board and pieces that she knew would be touched by a rival, Umayganat Osmanova. CCTV footage revealed Abakarova walking to the table where Osmanova was about to play a match and smearing something on the chess board and pieces. See?
Osmanova began to experience nausea and dizziness just 30 minutes later after she began play on the poisoned board. She noticed that some foreign substance was on the pieces and suspended the game before she was too seriously affected, but she still had to be hospitalized.
Confronted with the evidence that she tampered with the chess board, Abakarova confessed to poisoning Osmanova with mercury from an old thermometer. She insisted that she was only trying to “knock her out of the tournament,”and not, you know, murder her. She claimed she only wanted to “scare” her opponent, but admitted that she harbored animus against her victim, whom she has known since childhood.
I think it was probably unnecessary to explain that she harbored animus against someone she poisoned, but it’s always good to be transparent about one’s motives.
Abakarova now faces a lifetime ban from competitive chess and criminal prosecution.
Checkmate!
Ethics Alarms 
That poison doesn’t seem to make sense. Mercury poisoning takes weeks for noticeable effects. If she got sick after 30 minutes from mercury poisoning, she would probably have died soon. Something else was used.
There’s not much data on pure mercury poisoning…most sources talk about Mercury in fish. I was running an organization that had a whole room filled with broken equipment and big globs of mercury on the floor and tables. I reported its, and they cleared out the building, told us to wear masks, and a HAZMAT squad cleaned it out.
Of course, it’s attempted poisoning even if it wasn’t going to work.
Mercury metal isn’t that toxic. When your body converts it to methylmercury, it becomes very toxic. Methylmercury can be absorbed through the skin. However, the actions of heavy metal poisoning take weeks (or longer) to take effect. When Karen Wetterhahn ended up with 20x a lethal dose, it took months for the symptoms to show up.
https://cen.acs.org/safety/lab-safety/25-years-Karen-Wetterhahn-died-dimethylmercury-poisoning/100/i21
Fascinating article on Karen Wettenhahn. Thank you so much for sharing it, Michael.
This story doesn’t make a lot of sense. As many have suggested handling mercury metal was a common practice in the pre-“We Are All Going to Die” environmental movement. see below information on elemental mercury poisoning.
While I hesitate to use the CDC as a source their information on elemental mercury poisoning looks accurate.
From CDC websites:
https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/MMG/MMGDetails.aspx?mmgid=106&toxid=24#:~:text=Acute%20exposure%20to%20high%20levels,%2C%20respiratory%20failure%2C%20and%20death.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mercury/docs/HealthEffectsMercury.pdf
Symptoms and Causes
Breathing mercury vapors in air is the most common way to be exposed to elemental mercury, and is the most harmful to your health. If mercury is swallowed most of it passes through your body and very little is absorbed. If you touch mercury for a short period of time a small amount may pass through your skin, but not enough to harm you.
What are the signs and symptoms of mercury poisoning?
Symptoms of mercury poisoning are different for each type of mercury and range in severity from person to person.
Elemental mercury poisoning symptoms
Elemental mercury is usually harmless if you touch or swallow it because its slippery texture won’t absorb into your skin or intestines. Elemental mercury is extremely dangerous if you breathe it in and it gets into your lungs. Often, elemental mercury becomes airborne if someone is trying to clean up a mercury spill with a vacuum.
Symptoms of elemental mercury poisoning occur immediately after inhaling the chemical and include:
Having been in Russia, I can attest that Russian medicine is often less than reliable. But nonetheless–1) cameras caught the woman smearing stuff on the board and pieces 2) her intended victim got sick after touching them 3) the perp confessed that it was mercury 4) neither law enforcement or medical authorities have contradicted that.
I am not disputing her actions etc. The story just doesn’t match the “science”.
It doesn’t matter. Mercury poisoning doesn’t work that way. The Russians love metal poisoning because it doesn’t show symptoms effect for some time. By the time symptoms occur, it is generally to late for treatment. Thallium is the favorite because its salts are colorless, tasteless, odorless, and dissolve well in water. London hospitals even have protocols for thallium poisoning because of the actions of FSB agents there.
The only reason I can think that she lied is because a broken thermometer is not a banned item. She probably acquired a poison that is illegal, so by lying, she can reduce the charges?
I have to agree. Long before the mercury hazard was trumpeted by some we used to play with the liquid metal in 9th grade science class cir 1970. We never got sick after handling it multiple times. I suppose if you ingested a drop or two you might have problems by trace amounts on our hands never bothered us.
Second. Mrs. OB reported having played with mercury her dad brought home and kept in their basement.
There were mercury mines in the Phoenix Mountains north of Phoenix, now in Phoenix. The pass through the mountains is called “Dreamy Draw” because of the mercury miners getting loopy from working the stuff. The main peak in the range was called “Squaw Peak,” which I’m sure (looking at it from most every angle) was originally called “Squaw Tit/Teat” before some federal map makers cleaned it up. It’s now called Piestewa Peak (ironically, I think) in honor of the poor young Navajo woman who was an Army truck driver in the first Iraq war and was tragically killed when her column got lost.
Physicians in the 1950’s used to have people drink about 2 cups of mercury to ‘clean you out’ by pushing everything out of the digestive tract.
I would tend to agree that attempting to murder your main chess rival would be unethical.
jvb
Whew!
I know you were nervous for a minute. There’s that old saying, “All’s fair in love and chess.” Yes, back in the good old days, that would include attempted murder of your main rival. Now, in the 21st century, we are a bit more enlightened. Attempted murder is frowned upon by most civilized societies, though some do have a “Wow! That was a clever idea!” exception to criminal charges. In those relatively few (and clearly more advanced) societies, the more creative the attempt, the more the accused is respected. This case wouldn’t apply because, well, mercury poisoning is so passé, trite, and sophomoric. I mean, c’mon . . .
jvb
She must have used something a lot more toxic and fast acting than mercury. Come on, it’s Russia. Probably some nasty isotope from the local nuke power plant. What’s “Homer” in Russian?
Or maybe, “Moose and squirrel must die.”
Well, of course attempting to murder your chess rival and childhood nemesis would be unethical.
But what if you succeed? Does earn you an ‘attagirl’ rather than cuffs?
————
As an aside, as someone who used to play with mercury from a thermometer as a kid, I think the Russians may have turned to the wrong page in their toxicology book. Unless what she smeared on that chessboard was outgassing profusely — in which case why didn’t her rival’s opponent also get sick?
As an aside, I thought chess players were able to think on multiple levels and numerous steps ahead. Here, this lovely lady didn’t know the room had security cameras recording everything. I question her competence as a chess player. I mean, I routinely check for cameras when I am about to commit any sort of crime . . .
jvb
A good chess players would also check for cameras when they are not about to commit a crime. You know, to make sure that checking for cameras does not end up leaking your intentions.
This is going to sound horrible, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a store and thought about how a person – not me, of course, a different not-me person – would steal stuff without cameras catching him/her (again, not me). Then I start looking for the cameras…and they’re everywhere.
Even if you had a disguise, it’s pretty hard to commit a crime without several of the gazillion street cameras tracking you down.
I just watched that Columbo episode and they may need to complain about copyright infringement.
However, in fiction, the poisoning was secondary to tossing the guy in the garbage chute. The poisoner also mixed medicines for a diabetic, rather than smearing them on chess pieces, since he wanted to skip the whole game. I think the fictional poisoner sounds a lot smarter than this character. I much prefer reading about fictional (attempted or successful) murders than real ones.
Of course, if you are replicating a character, almost ANY character, in a murder mystery with the possible exception of the detective, unethical is the probable verdict for your actions. That might be its own ethical principle. “Don’t act like someone who would be in a mystery novel.” A lot of ethics fails can be covered by that principle.
I noticed that the Lawrence Harvey episode was on last night. Not one of my favorites—juuuust a bit contrived. Not only do we have a crazy chess player, but he is deaf as well. Always liked Jack Kruschen, though, who played one of the least deserving victims in that show’s annals.
For faster results, Ms. Abakarova should have used batrachotoxin on the chess pieces. Granted, that’s a little harder to get your hands on…and it’s a LOT more dangerous to get your hands on.
I have that knowledge from a friend.
Anyways, I will now always think twice when challenged to a “friendly game of chess”…or at least I’ll be sure to wear latex gloves.
She just wanted to keep her opponent’s playing ability “in check”.