Patrick Gideon Wolff is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 Grandmaster. The son of philosopher, Robert Paul Wolff

Robert Paul Wolff

Robert Paul Wolff is a contemporary American political philosopher and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wolff has written widely on many topics in political philosophy such as Marxism, tolerance , political justification and democracy. Wolff is also well known for his work on...

, and brother of law professor, Tobias Barrington Wolff

Tobias Barrington Wolff

Tobias Barrington Wolff is a professor of law best known for his legal advocacy on same sex marriage and other LGBT-related issues. He is openly gay.-Biography:...

, Wolff won the United States Chess Championship in 1992 and 1995.

Chess career

In addition to his two United States championships (1992 and 1995), Wolff also had a distinguished scholastic chess career, winning the 1983 National High School Championship and the 1987 U.S. Junior Championship.

In 1988, in a game played in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Wolff defeated the world champion Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....

 during a simultaneous exhibition

Simultaneous exhibition

A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...

 in just 25 moves with the black pieces.

1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 c6 4.d4 exd4 5.Qxd4 d5 6.cxd5 cxd5 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.Qa4 Be7 9.O-O O-O 10.Be3 Ng4 11.Bd4 Nxd4 12.Nxd4 Qb6 13.Nc3 Qh6 14.h4 g5 15.Nxd5 Bd8 16.Rac1 gxh4 17.Rxc8 hxg3 18.Nf3 Nh2 19.Rfc1 Rxc8 20.Rxc8 Nxf3+ 21.exf3 gxf2 22.Kf1 Qd2 23.Nf6+ Kg7 24.Ne8+ Kh8 25.Qe4 Bh4 0-1

This game, although played as part of a simultaneous exhibition against five other masters, was one of Kasparov's shortest losses in his career.

In 1995, the same year he won his second United States championship, Wolff served as a second to challenger Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand

V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....

 in preparation for the Classical World Chess Championship 1995

Classical World Chess Championship 1995

The Classical World Chess Championship 1995, known at the time as the PCA World Chess Championship 1995, was held from September 10, 1995, to October 16, 1995, on the 107th floor of the former World Trade Center in New York City. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Viswanathan Anand, the...

 match against champion Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....

. Although Anand led the match after nine games, Kasparov eventually prevailed 10.5 to 7.5.

Wolff is also the author of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess. He graduated from Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 in 1996, and the trophy of the annual Harvard-Yale intercollegiate chess match is named the Wolff Cup in his honor, as he remains the only grandmaster to participate in the match as a member of both colleges (beginning at Yale

YALE

RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

 and graduating from Harvard).

Investing career

Wolff was previously a managing director at San Francisco hedge fund Clarium, which is a $3B global macro hedge fund. He left Clarium to launch Grandmaster Capital Management, a hedge fund that received seed capital from Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel

Peter Andreas Thiel is an American business magnate, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO...

, the founder of Clarium and a strong chessplayer, himself.

Over the past several years, he has given a blindfolded

Blindfold chess

Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces...

 simultaneous exhibition

Simultaneous exhibition

A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...

 for all-comers at the annual Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. The company averaged an annual growth in book value of 20.3% to its shareholders for the last 44 years,...

 shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska headed by CEO Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett

Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...

 and Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger

Charles Thomas Munger is an American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist. He is Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, the diversified investment corporation chaired by Warren Buffett; in that capacity, Buffett describes Munger as "my partner." Munger is also the...

.

External links

• Kasparov vs Wolff, 0-1 (requires Java plugin)
• "American Gambit: Kasparov vs US Juniors", Chessbase News, 13 April 2010