Where the Kings of Chess Rest: A Tour of the Game's Most Famous Graves
By Cameron W. · Thu, 03 Sep 2026
Chess has crowned seventeen undisputed World Champions since the title was formalized in 1886, and their final resting places turn out to be scattered across the world in ways that trace the sport's own restless history, from Brooklyn to Havana, from a quiet churchyard in rural Iceland to Moscow's most prestigious cemetery.
The first two champions, a mile apart in New YorkFew chess fans realize that the game's first two World Champions both ended up buried within a mile of each other in New York City, despite neither being American by birth. Wilhelm Steinitz, born in Prague, held the first official title from 1886 to 1894 and died in New York in 1900. He rests in Evergreens Cemetery, straddling the Brooklyn-Queens border, in a section called Bethel Slope. Emanuel Lasker, the second champion and Steinitz's successor, was born in what's now Poland but also died in New York, in 1941. He's buried at Beth Olom Cemetery in Cypress Hills, Queens, close enough to his old rival that the two men's graves can be visited in a single afternoon.Capablanca's monument, and Alekhine's long journey homeJosé Raúl Capablanca, the Cuban third champion, is buried in Havana's Colón Cemetery beneath an elaborate monument, a fitting tribute in a country that still treats him as a national hero. His successor, Alexander Alekhine, had a stranger path to his final resting place. Alekhine died in Portugal in 1946 under circumstances that remain disputed to this day, but his remains were later moved to Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, where his grave and monument stand today.The Soviet dynasty, split between two Moscow cemeteriesThe long run of Soviet champions who dominated the mid-20th century mostly returned to Moscow. Mikhail Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov are both buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, the resting place reserved for many of Russia's most celebrated cultural and political figures. Tigran Petrosian is interred at Vagankovo Cemetery, in the section historically associated with Moscow's Armenian community, a nod to his heritage. Mikhail Tal, who broke the Soviet mold with his attacking style, is buried at Shmerly Cemetery in his native Riga, Latvia, rather than in Russia.Fischer's exile, and a graveyard visit that made headlinesNo champion's burial site carries more weight than Bobby Fischer's. After years of self-imposed exile and legal trouble with the United States, Fischer spent his final years in Iceland, the country that had hosted his legendary 1972 title match against Boris Spassky and later granted him citizenship. He died in Reykjavik in 2008 and was buried in the small cemetery of Laugardælir Church, near the town of Selfoss. The site became the setting for a genuinely emotional moment in chess history in 2014, when Garry Kasparov, who never faced Fischer over the board, visited the grave on what would have been Fischer's 71st birthday. Kasparov later described the visit as almost overwhelming, saying the graveyard felt full of buried hopes that never fully came true.The graves that were nearly lostNot every notable resting place has been well tended. Johannes Zukertort, who played in the very first official World Championship match against Steinitz in 1886 before falling ill and dying two years later, was cremated with a memorial slab placed in London's Brompton Cemetery. That memorial was largely forgotten until 2011, when grandmaster Stuart Conquest came across the story of Zukertort's death and tracked the site down. It's a reminder that even genuine pioneers of the game can slip out of memory, and that keeping their stories alive sometimes takes someone willing to go looking.Further afieldEarlier, unofficial champions and pioneers of the game are scattered even more widely. Paul Morphy, the mid-19th-century American prodigy sometimes called the first true chess genius, rests in his family's tomb at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans. Howard Staunton, whose name still graces the standard design of tournament chess pieces, is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London, alongside Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell, two players whose fierce 1834 rivalry helped define competitive chess before the World Championship title even existed.