In the movie, he is the very strong yet younger rival to Josh (he is Poe in the movie). I first found out about him from the book from which the movie was drawn, where his living circumstances were as bizarre as his talent. I knew that he soon withdrew from the chess scene, and I thought, "Well, he burned out totally," but apparently that is wrong. He lately played in a rapid tourney in Europe and finished 3rd, sandwiched between pairs of GMs.

On his site he tells a bit about himself and what happened to him in these intervening years. Also quite interesting are videos about him when he was so young and playing strong chess. The link below is one and I really enjoyed  not least for the games shown between Jeff and Reshevsky. Sammy talks a bit about Jeff and his talent as well. Good stuff I think.

http://jeffsarwer.com/gallery.php?film=monitor

Thanks for sharing!

Watch the video on there of Jeff... His personality is "interesting" I can't believe he could do the things he could at that age. The video shows him playing blindfold chess with Pandolfini at age 9 and doing simuls at age 7.

Thanks for the great post. It is refreshing to get something so interesting when recently the forum has been dominated by silliness.

July 1st 1988

Is Poe in the movie Josh's rival at the end of the tournament? The one who would not take the draw, and always seemed stuck up?  Or is he the younger boy at the very end who was walking with Josh and Josh was saying, something like, " You are doing much better than I was at your age." ? (Those two fathers were friends.)

Please clarify.

stwils

I mainly remember him as that annoying kid who appeared on the Shelby Lyman World Championship show (if I remember right) and talked about Kasparov like he was a patz.  He was an embarrassment...one of those 8-year-old egomaniacs unrestrained by any parental influence (you just kind of want to give them a kick when no one's looking, like some yapping little chihuahua).

The actual book "Searching for Bobby Fischer," which is MUCH better than the movie, confirms tonydal's assessment. The book also indicates that the kid's family life was just straight-up weird.

Yeah... but he actually was unrestrained by any parental influence -- watch the first video... he comes from an extremely non-traditional unbringing... his Dad's an anarcho-hippie living off the grid ... and from what I could gather on his website, his childhood was really difficult... he talks about being glad childhood doesn't last very long, because it was so painful... and getting taken into protective childcare by Canada, and then escaping back to live with his dad because the Canadian shelter set up he felt was worse for him than living with his Dad.  So, yeah he's an egotistical self-aggrandizing little freak... but that describes quite a few adult IMs and GMs coming from far less trying circumstances...

OK. But which boy was he in the movie. The one that Josh offered a draw to during the tourney ?

stwils

Thats how most 8-year-olds are.. you ought to be angry at shelby lymann for having him on, imagine if they put you on a serious show at that age, i doubt you would have handled it as well as jeff did.    

That is correct

 he was the josh's rival the one who refused the draw... and it was not a very accurate portrayal mind you.

Here is some trivia on Searching for Bobby Fischer, the movie, and some info on Jeff Sarwer

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/searching.htm

I wonder why he was portrayed as an evil genius in Searching for Bobby Fischer.

thx for link

i watched the first long video .... a charming if precocious little genius

But his web site says he has been buying real estate in Eastern Europe so sadly he is now bankrupt

only at a chess site would geocities links still be offered (just kidding)

But he didn't handle it well...he was a little monster.  True enough though that he shouldn't be encouraged in such behavior by all the well-meaning, indulgent adults surrounding him.  And you might have a point that I would've been even worse at that age--but I'd hardly consider that an endorsement (in fact, truthfully it may be a good part of the reason why I bristle to see some other kid being allowed to act like a little horse's ass in public).

another chess player that ran to poker

good for him

Interesting video on Jeff at age 9.  He didn't quite make master (perhaps 1850 USCF rated), but later gave up chess and did other things (he was active in chess again in 2007).  I am glad I was associated with Jordy Mont-Reynaud (his sister Marie-Jo also played, but lost interest later on) and Vinay Bhat when they were age 7-9 and members of the Palo Alto Chess Club,   Both became the youngest masters up to that time at age 10 (Bhat became an IM at 16).  They both turned out quite normal, graduated from top universities (Stanford and Berkeley) and both doing well.  Jordy works at Bebo (mobile developer) and Vinay is now a grandmaster (got his title in 2008) and winner of the 2008 Samford Fellowship.  They both had supportive mothers that took them to chess tourneys.  They can still beat me at chess, but I still think I can kick their butts in tennis.   Jordy needs to confirm that he was offered to play the part of Josh Waitzkin in the movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer, but turned it down.  I think that is true.  Both Jordy and Vinay are members of chess.com.  Jeff seems to be a gambling and casinos professional who plays a lot of poker and now lives in Poland.   1975 to 1984 produced some great prodigies in chess.  In 1975, Topalov and Kramnik were born.  In 1976,  Judit Polgar and Josh Waitzkin were born.  In 1978, Tal Shaked and Jeff Sarwer were born.  In 1979, Peter Leko was born.  In 1981, Peter Acs was born.  In 1982, Etienne Bacrot and Jordy Mont-Reynaud were born.  In 1984, Vinay Bhat was born.  In 1987, Hikaru Nakamura was born.  In 1990, Magnus Carlsen was born.

Below is a link to a forum wherein Sarwer is the subject and the man himself has a few things to say. Nice pic of the adult Jeff too. 10 games to play through.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=81835&kpage=1

His max USCF that I could find in my old magazines was, as I recall, about 1850. Pretty good and I wonder how good he could have become. Canadian Anand?