I guess without a mother or other relatives in their life they didn't know any other way or were just way too uncomfortable, awkward, feeling out of place maybe. Kids don't have a broad frame of reference of life experiences yet so it would be easy for an abusive adult to keep them in the situation. "Ooh, the mean people trying to take you away will split everyone up and you'll never see each other again", maybe with something like that
What happened to Josh Waitzkin?
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Sounds plausible. Wasn't his sister supposed to be good at chess too.
Yeah. I believe they BOTH may have won their sections at some world class tournaments for juniors. Have to read up on it again. Bit it might have been something significant, really huge like world championships for their age or something close to that important. Have to check the facts on it
I'll check it out too.
Just checked Wikipedia. He was world under 10 champion. Check out some of the amazing comparisons to historical greats said about him. Amazing and sad story. Compared to him the waitzkin story seems puny
Bruce Pandolphini, Josh Waitzkins teacher said this about Jeff Sarwar : "Of the several thousand kids that I've taught, JEFF IS CERTAINLY THE MOST AMAZING PLAYER IVE EVER SEEN." End quote. And that was Josh Waitzkins teacher.
MrDamonSmith wrote:
Bruce Pandolphini, Josh Waitzkins teacher said this about Jeff Sarwar : "Of the several thousand kids that I've taught, JEFF IS CERTAINLY THE MOST AMAZING PLAYER IVE EVER SEEN." End quote. And that was Josh Waitzkins teacher.
I wonder if Josh liked that. 
You just can't teach natural talent and although Waitzkin was very talented I believe Sarwar, well who knows how brilliant he could've been with the right life surrounding him, coaches etc. There clearly are different degrees of natural ability and Josh may have ultimately admitted it to himself. I imagine Josh worked Even harder when HIS OWN mentor said that. But I'm sure Bruce was just being honest
MrDamonSmith wrote:
You just can't teach natural talent and although Waitzkin was very talented I believe Sarwar, well who knows how brilliant he could've been with the right life surrounding him, coaches etc. There clearly are different degrees of natural ability and Josh may have ultimately admitted it to himself. I imagine Josh worked Even harder when HIS OWN mentor said that. But I'm sure Bruce was just being honest
I agree.
breaking news update: after minor research it seems Jeff Sarwer now lives in Poland. He had to quit playing chess when he was 10 but recently has participated in a rapid tournament, he performed at over 2300 fide (first tournament in decades). He's currently a member of chessgames.com and uses his own name as his user name. He plays poker tournaments and is in the investment side of real estate. He is a year and a half younger than Josh Waitzkin and played 2 games vs him, both at the national primary championships in 1985 and 1986, one with each color. Score: 1 win and 1 draw in Sarwers favor.
All MrDamonSmith wrote I can confirm, having read an interview with Jeff (he actually lives in my town now).
Also, to people wondering why he didn't want to leave his abusive father: a cousin of his (or some other relative, can't remember) has been put in an orphanage, was raped there and commited suicide as a result. The authorities actually tried to put Jeff and his sister in an orphanage, too, and they basically became fugitives because they didn't want to reenact their cousin's story.
stefanstr wrote:
All MrDamonSmith wrote I can confirm, having read an interview with Jeff (he actually lives in my town now).
Also, to people wondering why he didn't want to leave his abusive father: a cousin of his (or some other relative, can't remember) has been put in an orphanage, was raped there and commited suicide as a result. The authorities actually tried to put Jeff and his sister in an orphanage, too, and they basically became fugitives because they didn't want to reenact their cousin's story.
Interesting.
MrDamonSmith wrote:
breaking news update: after minor research it seems Jeff Sarwer now lives in Poland. He had to quit playing chess when he was 10 but recently has participated in a rapid tournament, he performed at over 2300 fide (first tournament in decades). He's currently a member of chessgames.com and uses his own name as his user name. He plays poker tournaments and is in the investment side of real estate. He is a year and a half younger than Josh Waitzkin and played 2 games vs him, both at the national primary championships in 1985 and 1986, one with each color. Score: 1 win and 1 draw in Sarwers favor.
Josh had also most likely been training longer, since he was that much older, and started when he was six.
May 30, 2013
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#196
it was worthwile to follow this thread just to read the part about Jeff.
The book "Search F BF" was much better than the movie. The most interesting part of the book was the interview with Boris Gulko in Russia.
DENVERHIGH wrote:
I wonder if that kid on the cover ever actually learned how to play chess.
He must've been taught at least the basics well enough to pretend he was playing in tournaments. If he made illegal moves right on screen it'd make for bad acting and directing
MrDamonSmith wrote:
He must've been taught at least the basics well enough to pretend he was playing in tournaments. If he made illegal moves right on screen it'd make for bad acting and directing
I mean, did he get pretty good.
So here was this homeless kid in an abusive life without all the special privileges and training that Josh had and he was STILL a better player. In short: they made the movie about the wrong kid
Could be.
It's what happens when one father is abusive and the other is an author that writes pure fiction.
Why would him and his sister go back to live the jerk? That's what I don't understand.