From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 7 oct 1999
Subject: Re: David Murphy passed away

At 10:49 PM 10/7/99 +0200, Pieter Stouten wrote:
>It saddens me having to inform you that David Murphy has recently
>passed away at the age of 47. He probably died in his sleep.
>
>David was one of the earliest Shogi players on the European scene and
>a strong Chess and Xiang Qi player. His most impressive feat was the
>European Champion title he earned in Frankfurt, Germany in 1990. In
>recent years he has not been playing much in tournaments, but devoted
>a lot of time to solving Chu Shogi problems.
>
>David was also one of the friendliest players around, always willing
>to help weaker players, to compliment them on good moves and explain
>how to improve on bad ones (as I still remember from my first ever
>international tournament in Utrecht, Netherlands in March 1979). He
>never uttered a sneer or negative remark.
>
>He has gone through some stressful times this year and lost his
>mother only a few months ago.
>
>To all who have known David, his death is very sad and shocking news.
>A gifted player and a gentle human being have gone.
>
     I too am very sorry to hear of this news.  My son and I were perhaps
the last active shogi players to see Dave; on our recent trip to London for
the Pan-American shogi championships we visited George Hodges, who invited
Dave to come over for the occasion.  Although Dave had not been playing
normal shogi in recent years, we did some analysis of a game and an opening
from which I deduced that he still retained his skill.  He told us that
recently his efforts had been devoted to solving the "Jack the Ripper"
murders of over a century ago; his conclusion was that they were the result
of multiple killers.  I think he may have been planning a book on the
topic.  He suffered from Diabetes, from which victims often die young, so I
am not totally stunned by the news, but when I saw him I had no inkling
that the end was near.  Before this recent meeting, I had not seen him
since the early 80s, before he reached his full strength in shogi, so we
never actually played a game on even terms, but even then I could tell that
he was a very gifted person; he not only was very good at games, but his
gift for languages enabled him to learn Japanese well enough to do quite a
bit of translation for shogi.  He was indeed an unusually kind and
considerate fellow, traits which are not so often found in highly
competitive game players.  Perhaps it was the inconsistency between these
traits and the competitive nature of tournament play that led him to give
up competition; analyzing and solving problems were more suited to his
personality.  Anyway the shogi world has indeed had a great loss.

     Larry Kaufman