Joshua Waitzkin

Joshua Waitzkin (born December 4 1976, New York City) is a chess player, martial arts competitor, and author. As a child he was recognized as a prodigy, and won the U.S. Junior Chess championship in 1993 and 1994.

He began playing the game at the age of six, having discovered it while wandering through Washington Square Park in New York City. It was there, while playing blitz chess with the hustlers, that he was "discovered" by Bruce Pandolfini, a chess author and teacher, who later took Waitzkin under his wing for a number of years. During his years as a student at The Dalton School in New York City he led the school to win six national team championships between the 3rd and 9th grades in addition to his eight individual titles.

The first master he ever defeated was Edward Frumkin, in a game featuring a remarkable sacrifice of Waitzkin's queen and rook in exchange for a mate in 6. Waitzkin was only ten years old at the time.

At 11, he was one of two children to draw with World Champion Garry Kasparov in an exhibition game where Kasparov played simultaneously against 59 youngsters. Two years later, he earned the title of National Master, and at 16 became an International Master.

Despite this early promise, Waitzkin has not yet gained the Grandmaster title. In the January 2004 FIDE rankings, he had an Elo rating of 2464, though is listed as inactive, with no rated games in 2003 or 2004. This may be due to his recent focus on the martial art Tai Chi Chuan, in which he has won four Tai Chi Chuan pushing hands tournaments.

Nevertheless he remains a well-known and popular chess figure, largely owing to Paramount Pictures' 1993 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, directed by Steven Zaillian. The script for this film was based on a 1988 book by Joshua's father, Fred Waitzkin: Searching for Bobby Fischer: The Father of a Prodigy Observes the World of Chess.

Joshua Waitzkin is the author of Attacking Chess: Aggressive Strategies and Inside Moves from the U.S. Junior Chess Champion (1995). He is also the spokesperson for the Chessmaster computer game series, and is featured in the game giving advice and game analysis.

In a 2007 book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin recounts the story of his years as a chess competitor from his own perspective. He describes how movie fame challenged his concentration on the game, how he took up Tai Chi as a form of relaxation, and then discovered that the same learning techniques he employed in chess enabled him to advance rapidly in martial arts as well. He subsequently studied eastern philosophies and psychology of learning.

Waitzkin is active in the fight against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He does not have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy; however, a close friend of his, Jonathan Wade, suffers from the medical condition.

Quotations

 * "The most important thing I believe I've learned [from chess] is the idea of when you have an opportunity, a gift, whatever it is, you take advantage of it."
 * During an interview following his first U.S. Junior Chess championship win, when asked what he aspired to when he grew up, Josh replied that he'd like to play for the Mets.
 * "Studying the opening is just memorizing moves and hoping for traps, but studying the end game is chess."