I always wondered what the big hoopla with this guy was.
Looks like he learned what America is about pretty well.
I dont know if he was the greatest chess player ever considering his short career, there are so many different rating systems. He certainly was one of the most interesting. I really dont think he understood America and the modern world at all. In the 1970s when all the computer research was going on the US, he literally dropped out, he didnt play chess for 20 years after the World Championship in 1972 . I dont know about all the statements against the jews and the US, seems pretty crazy at times. He probably could have lived longer. He didnt get treated at all for a urinary tract blockage.
This is my biggest fear , playing chess against somebody with eyes like this.
Woman grand master making strides for chess in Colombia
Wednesday, 27 February 2013 10:05
Benjy Hansen-Bundy
Chess-wiz Nadya Karolina Ortiz is Colombia's first and only woman grandmaster.
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2013/02/colombias-first-and-only-woman.html
Nadya Ortiz learned to play chess from her father when she was six years old. She began studying electrical engineering at the Universidad de Ibagu, but then switched to a chess scholarship at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College to there computer science study.
Raised in a middle class family in the central Colombian city of Ibague in the Tolima department, Ortiz is one of Colombia's lesser known success stories.
At the tender age of four, Ortiz asked her father, himself a chess enthusiast and Russophile, to teach her how to play. Within a week, she was supposedly making moves at a ten-year-old level. By 16, she had won the under-20 Central American championship in Barbados. Ortiz went on to study computer science at UTB on a chess scholarship. She graduated summa cum laude and is currently pursuing a Master's degree at the same university.
"Chess is an addiction, and a lot of people don't know much about it," said Ortiz. "It's its own world. A professional chess player needs to study as much as someone trying to become a doctor."
In collaboration with her father, Ortiz created a chess program for schools in her hometown. In August of 2011 it began operating in 32 schools in her native city of Ibague. According to the grandmaster, there are many benefits to learning chess, including attentiveness, memory, and concentration. The sport, which is steadily building its Colombian fan base, also teaches time management, problem solving, and sportsmanship.
"One of the most satisfying results was that the children were encouraged and were not obliged, because in general, chess can be boring for many...in 2012 there was an increase in children associated with the chess league, which for me is a great step forward, because this shows that we instilled in them an appreciation," said Ortiz.
In 2010, she traveled deep into the heart of Russia to an oil boom town, Khanty-Mansiysk, where the World Chess Olympiad was held. She came home as Colombia's only woman grandmaster.