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| Jun-01-07 | | pazzed paun: I have now read J.W. new book. It is a bit odd and Josh strains hard in the writing of it. It is clear that he will NEVER play competitve chess again!!
In the back of the book he has a list of more than a dozen people he allowed to proofread and comment on the book before publication. Only one is a chess player!! He has moved on not to return.
Josh is about 5'9" with a slight to medium build-he was not an athlete growing up and did not start Martial arts untill after age 20--the book has a picture of him training with a heavy bag. He has his shirt off. To have sculpted his body like that as an full-grown human being takes huge dedication and focus--he does not have time for chess but he probably only has about five years left in the martial arts,then he will go to something else. 30 year old Josh will not sit across the board from some 11 year old genius!
He would start spouting philosphy and then the kid would grind him into dust!! |
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| Jul-02-07 | | zdigyigy: IM at age sixteen....That aint too shabby. Imagine if Josh had been born in Russia (or anywhere chess is popularily viewed as science and art) and I give you 2600-2700 guaranteed by age 31. |
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| Jul-28-07 | | amuralid: < Imagine if Josh had been born in Russia > See Yuri Kuzubov
He would have been real famous but for one Sergey Karjakin. |
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| Aug-08-07 | | HannibalSchlecter: I just finished reading Josh's new book "The Art Of Learning." Man that guy can write! The way he describes in detail all the psychological nuances a chess player's mind goes through is astounding. The book also chronicles his rise to the top in Tai Chi Chuan Push-Hands competetion using his chess knowledge to out-think the more experienced more athletic giants of the martial arts. Truly and great read and an inspiring book. Awesome! |
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| Aug-08-07 | | dabearsrock1010: <HannibalSchlecter> Are you Josh Waitzkin trying to promote your book by posing as a chessgames.com member? If so, shame on you I will not buy your book. If not, I still won't buy the book Josh, so stop trying to trick me. |
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| Aug-08-07 | | HannibalSchlecter: Nope, just a fan of his writing. I didn't even buy mine. I got it for free at the public library. |
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| Aug-08-07 | | dabearsrock1010: <hannibalschlecter> It was just a joke Josh no need to explain yourself. |
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Aug-08-07
 | | JointheArmy: <dabearsrock1010> Josh actually is a talented writer. Since the Chessmaster lectures were probably read rather than an improvisation, he is very entertaining and its a loss for literature he didn't devote his life to writing instead. |
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| Aug-08-07 | | whatthefat: Once when I was playing through his lectures in CM9000, the audio seemed to get caught in a loop on one of the moves. Bizarrely however, rather than playing the same piece of dialogue each time, it played slightly reworded versions, as though somehow Josh's practise versions had been included. It was quite strange to listen to. |
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| Aug-09-07 | | dabearsrock1010: <JointheArmy> Two accounts now for you Josh, man you are really working hard. IM KIDDING GUYS no need to explain he is a good writer im sure he is it was just a joke |
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| Aug-09-07 | | micartouse: I think I'm going to buy his book <The Art of Learning>. I just realized I'm 25 days older than Josh but he's actually done some cool things with his life. I want to know how a person thinks who achieves big yet diverse goals. It seems like he's able to really focus on something, but it seems easier to have a few different passions rather than one. Pizza may taste great, but it would get old to eat it every night for 5 straight years. I want to read his point of view on achieving stuff! Actually, in his interviews he says some goofy sounding stuff but maybe that's lesson number 1: don't be so cynical about everything. |
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| Aug-10-07 | | HannibalSchlecter: <dabearsrock1010> :) Joke noted. <JointheArmy> Indeed, he has a gift for putting into words seemingly deep concepts in an entertaining and understandable conscience raising way.
<micartouse> One of the things I liked about the book is how Josh explains in detail the key mental differences between great and mediocre achievers. There's a chapter on what he calls "entity" thinking where people get mental highs and lows depending on their immediate results. He says those people get frustrated easily at obstacles and therefore do not perform as well as those few who see obstacles as challenges to be overcome and who see the big picture as a process that will be mastered with persistent effort. (I'm paraphrasing big time)The book has not only taught me but inspired me and Dabearsrock1010 will have a field day with this but since reading the book I have started diving into things that I used to shy away from, for example in chess I'm buckling down and learning theory...something I used to avoid out of laziness. Now I'm up for the challenge and I am actually enjoying the work. Anyway, I hope you like the book as much as I did. |
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| Sep-24-07 | | xrt999: <with deep relaxing breath after every pawns moves> . knights will jump to their beloved squares and pieces will be hung and can be taken whenever I want to. |
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| Sep-24-07 | | sentriclecub: Can anyone confirm whether or not he competes at the highest level of competetion for his TaiCh whatever? I mean do the Taich tournaments that he wins, are they amateur or are they literally the highest level of competetition in the world present? |
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Sep-24-07
 | | WannaBe: <sentriclecub> http://main.uschess.org/content/vie... That's all the info that I have. |
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| Sep-24-07 | | centercounter: I miss him in a sense. He came to a Florida tournaments. When he was 12, I drew him (although I should have played on). Afterwards, in the skittles room, he showed me some improvements in my favorite Black defense. Weird, being coached by someone who isn't even old enough to date. Later, at 15, he demolished me easily at a World Open in Philly. He played a few tournaments in Florida, and he took the time to talk to me, even remembered my name. Josh is a classy guy who hasn't let success change him for the worse. |
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| Oct-24-07 | | Riverbeast: Josh always was a nice guy, and very unassuming. That's one character portrayal (and maybe the only one) in the movie that was accurate. I'm happy for his success because unlike a lot of people in the chess world he wasn't an arrogant jerk. A lot of New York players of his/our generation were jealous of him because they thought they were more talented players, but nobody made a movie about them! This is the kind of attitude I'm talking about. I wanted to shake them and say, "Dude. The story wasn't about just chess. If your dad wrote a book about you (or if you wrote one about yourself!), maybe it would be a movie too!" If your story was interesting enough, that is... |
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| Nov-03-07 | | Octavia: methinks that Josh lost interest when he didn't get his GM title as fast as the top players of his generation. This is a pity.
At the moment there are a lot of older guys who are doing very well & i hope that in the near future the agism will disappear from chess.
Josh could be one of those youngsters who could help to achieve this. There is really no physical reason why old people can't compete at the very top in chess ( & Josh isn't even old yet, in the normal sense of 'old') - its purely brain washing. If you look at other intellectual activities like music & philosophy - all the best works were produced by old guys. |
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| Nov-03-07 | | GeauxCool: <Octavia>There was a recent interview from Josh. He said that he quit because of the movie's affect on both him and his opponents. His opponents were always gunning for him, yet he could no longer lose a game without severe criticism. He entered into a relatively unknown sport, and I think that underscores his reasons for quitting chess altogether: fame interfered with his ability to compete. So it is my understanding that he is through with professional chess. But I may be wrong. |
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| Nov-03-07 | | RookFile: Well, he was inadvertenly set up to fail. He was constantly being compared to Fischer, rather than being allowed to be who he was. Although he had talent, Waitzkin never reached the level of strength, ever, that Fischer had when he was only 14 or 15. |
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| Nov-05-07 | | Riverbeast: Maybe he'll come back to chess when he's too old for Tai-Chi. I think you're right, Rookfile: it was unfair that the movie and the book made him such a target (calling him a 'prodigy', for example, which made all the other players try to disprove that label). Waitzkin was a talented junior player, but not a 'child prodigy' in the sense of Reshevsky, Karjakin, etc. |
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| Nov-07-07 | | Riverbeast: I remember watching Ben Finegold (who was known as a phenomenal 1 minute player) beating Waitzkin at bullet chess repeatedly in front of his father and talking trash on top of it - saying stuff like "you shouldn't play with those players in the park" (a reference to a line in the movie). At one point he said to Fred Waitzkin, "should I let him win a game?" I felt bad for Josh because it seemed like he just wanted to play, and probably would not have tried to humiliate Ben if the results were reversed. So that's the kind of stuff that probably made him give up chess - all the guys who were jealous and resentful of him. I was also wondering if Ben had another reason for talking trash to Fred that day: Fred wrote something in SFBF about a guy who was beating IM Victor Frias in one minute chess, and Fred disparaged the player's 'real' chess ability (which was somewhat out of line since Fred didn't really play chess). Fred didn't name the mystery one-minute player, but he said that if the time controls had been more than one minute he 'wouldn't have had a chance'. Maybe Fred was talking about Ben there? |
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| Nov-07-07 | | Jim Bartle: Right, as if bullet chess proved anything beyond who can win in one minute... |
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| Nov-08-07 | | Riverbeast: Well...hand quickness does play a big part in 1 minute, but Finegold would find a lot of good moves also. The ability to find good moves quickly, and play blitz well, is a sign of natural talent. I think Finegold became #2 in the world at blitz, even though he never got the GM title (as far as I know). Still, Fred was really in no position to judge Ben's chess ability (if that's who he was talking about in the book), or whoever the guy was...How does he know he 'wouldn't have had a chance' at a slower time control? He probably just didn't like seeing his friend Victor getting WAXED |
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| Nov-08-07 | | Jim Bartle: Actually, I think he's a GM now. |
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