What happened to Josh Waitzkin?

I like the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer"

I watch it whenever it is on a channel . . .

DENVER

Banned?

Interesting thread. 

Wikipedia says he made IM. Before that his dad wrote a book about his kid to make money.  I am upset to this day that Chessmaster 2 has him as a GM. The movie is terrible, (streaming on Amazon Prime Now!).  I got twenty minutes in after years of trying to forget it and shut it off.

searching for Bobby Fischer was really good

They never found Bobby. They didn't even really look for him. And now he's dead.

great read from the "stupidgm". thanks for a great post. 

as for josh, i personally think when he feels he has accomplished all that his youth can afford to give him he will return to chess. he is one of the best end game players around. 

Yes.

i believe bobby fisher was being persued by the u.s. government for back taxes, became very bitter, and found santuary in some country where his mind went bad.

the sad thing is this didnt have to happen. not sure of the outcome if the government had handled it differently. 

the fact remains that bobby fisher brought a focus on chess that was never there before and should always be given credit for that. 

some say he played 1970s chess. he played bobby fisher chess and he was amazing. he gave the game a certain flare that ignited interest at all levels. 

one of the best players of all time and i for one will always hold his approach to chess in high esteem.

   Thank you StupidGM...very informative and well written, seriously.

    I have a different opinion, less thought out, and not as sophisticated. I think Josh should move in with Ben Finegold and they both should be forced to spend six hours a day bullsh*tting each other about their life goals and another six hours playing each other at knight odds.

    The movie was really really really stupid: the whole "can you be a good guy and still win?" theme was complete and total crap. The best thing about the movie was the young boy who played Josh; he was wonderful. The old teacher was cool too.

I liked the black chess player in the park . . .

DENVER

   The black guy was pretty good too......By the way, I live in Denver my whole life, still do of course.

Could it be that he saw that even if he became a GM he was not likely to earn a good living in chess and would have to lead a traveling life?

In the 1980's, when cancer-causing chemicals were poorly known or understood and Industrial Bench Chemist was the college-grad career with the shortest lifespan, that was my occupation and I had risen, by age 30, to Chief Chemist of Process Development for a subsidiary of Dow Chemical. I had developed processes for military fuels, flameproofing chemicals for children's clothes, pharmaceutical intermediates and pesticides and was developing a great professional reputation.

Then I started running for health again as I had done in school. When I went for a run one Saturday, I could smell and taste the chemicals I had been working with the previous week - they were in my blood stream enough to affect my nose and taste buds!  Even though I was near the top of my profession, I decided to give it up and go into teaching.  Within three years I was the lead teacher of Gifted and Talented Chemistry and Physics in my state's biggest high school.  I also head-coached varsity fast-pitch softball, cross country, and the chess club/team.  The academic/coaching part of my career was just as challenging and rewarding as the industrial part had been even though the talent required was not as rare as that required of an industrial research chemist and I retired in much better financial shape the most chess Grandmasters - and in good health!

Josh is very possibly going down a similar road!

I also was well rewarded for hard work early on.  I worked my way to an undergrad degree at UMBC, commuting from my parents' home, and got a job my last two years doing research on chemist and gave a talk to the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.  I scored very high on the GRE Exams (college grad equivalent of the SAT's).

I won a scholarship to chemistry graduate school at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) of $9900 a year beginning 1973, the equivalent of $54,000 per year today plus a teaching assistantship of $325/month tax free ($1800/month in today's dollars) for 9 months each year for teaching two 4-hour lab classes per week.

By the time I got to teaching high school I was so over-educated for the job, my biggest challenge was talking at a teenagers level of understanding - but I succeeded.

This is wonderful, wonderful news Mick! Thank you for sharing

I read Josh's book "Art of Learning" a few years ago and my recollection was that Josh felt he had reached his potential as a chess player, and couldn't get any better. I don't recall any mention about it being anything to do with money, but I could be wrong.

Yup.

He is a retired IM

Even an IM won't make much compared to someone with a dullard's job. I suppose he could go tax-free by setting up a little table in a touristy area and hustling suckers per game, but even then, it's not worth the bother.

   ---   Yep.

Joshua Waitzkin became a successful martial artist & learning life coach.  He married a nice woman named Desiree.  He wrote the books Attacking Chess & The Art of Learning the 2nd of which I read once.  When I thought I'd give chess another try about 8 years ago I bought a copy of Chessmaster for the PlayStation 2.  I credit his lessons & Chessmaster's ELO levels 1650 through 2300 for my development.  Ideas he relates such as investing in learning, getting into an optimal zone, not falling into a downward spiral, working on basics 1st & knowing & using your triggers I've integrated into my life.  He helped make me a better person & chess player.  He got me to focus on tactics & endgame & is a reason why I can play chess well even though I 1st started playing at 23 years old.  Thanks Josh!