The Barack Shock
As a little background, my first book Elements of Positional Evaluation, was written (with my typewriter!) in 1974 but not published til 1990. One of the reasons it was initially rejected was that a GM, who represented a chess publishing house, downplayed the manuscript primarily because he felt that my original observations about doubled pawns was "naive", and "I would learn better as I became a stronger player".
However, in the late 1990's, when IM John Watson wrote the advanced positional text Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, his work contained almost the identical insight about doubled pawns (among many other observations, of course), and it deservedly won Book of the Year. This compatibility between our texts was noticed by by a reader in Scotland who contacted John and I, and we started to correspond and occasionally kept in touch. All ended well as my book eventually was published, sold out its first three editions, and is now on its (greatly expanded) fourth edition.
A couple of years ago John was hosting a radio show which interviewed chess personalities. One day I was a guest on his show and John began the show by introducing me, and then asked the first question:
"How does it feel to be the chess instructor for famous personalities like...?"
Of course, I thought he was going to say Howard Stern, since it had become well-known in the chess community that I had been teaching Howard (Howard quit chess "cold turkey" in Feb 2011).
Imagine my shock when John continued,
"...like Barack Obama?" !?!
Well, as you might know, I am not often speechless, but I did not know how to respond. Was this a joke? If so, I was going to take it in good humor, so I tried...
"Well, uh, John... I have been teaching Howard Stern, as you probably know, but I have never met the President, much less given him any chess lessons..."
I think John was almost as shocked as I was at this point, since the snappy start of his show had not turned out as expected. He ventured the gambit:
"Well, that's what it says on your Wikipedia page."
I don't exactly dwell on my Wikipedia page, but we all know that helpful website is not exactly researched like the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Happily, the rest of the interview with John went really well...
After the show , John and I took a visit to Wikipedia and, sure enough, where it had previously just stated that I coached Howard Stern, some wise person had convinced Wiki to add both Barack Obama and some super-model (whom I had to admit I had never heard of) as a mischievous prank.
So I duly informed Wiki that yes, I was Dan Heisman and no, I had never taught the President or the super-model, so could they please correct my entry...
Hmm. Do you think the White House is in need of some strategy game advice...?
