At 14, Daniel Naroditsky is no mere pawn

From the SF Chronicle:

"There's a very nice teenager living in Foster City who likes to beat people's brains out.

This he does across a chessboard, moving pieces in a way that few 14-year-old kids move them. The brutal dismemberment he administers to foes is the real deal. The absence of actual spilled blood seems a technicality."

Daniel, a chess master at 11 and the junior world champion at 12, is patiently waiting for the world to catch up to him. He's an eighth-grader at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough and he lives in a Foster City townhouse with father Vladimir, a college math professor, and mother Lena, a concert pianist. Vladimir taught Daniel the game eight years ago and stopped playing games against him three years later, after finding that the tables had turned once and for all. No father wants to get horsewhipped endlessly by his own kid.

I once wrote a poem about Jose Raul Capablanca, the early 20th century master of speedchess, and became a little interested in the whole grandmaster racket. This kid is amazing, well on his way to becoming a grandmaster himself. The anecdotes aren't bad either: Russian literature moved to make way for chess trophies, the lecture he gave to older chess players, his close and careful study of the game, the fact that he has WRITTEN A BOOK expounding his own method. Let's hope he doesn't go the way of Bobby Fischer. The last quote is perfect (and true):

"A lot of young players pride themselves on never opening a chess book," said Donaldson. "Not Daniel. He studies and studies. He's amazing. He needs to be cloned and his DNA distributed to the youth of America." [emphasis added]