Absolute Player Bios

I was married, had two children, Justin and Brennan, and divorced. I was born in Montreal, September 26, 1939, received a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and as a consquence, am now a lifetime tarheel.

From 1967 to 1972 I was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at Davis, and since 1980, have been a math professorat Malaspina University - College in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Between 1973 and 1979 I took a time-out from mathematics to write several novels, all fiction, in several areas. Although currently a math professor, I spend most of my spare time writing novels, in particular, one long fantasy-adventure novel which I expect will be published in the next year or two.

My competitive chess career started in 1972 when I first joined the USCF and began playing correspondence chess. It ended some twenty-five years later, during which time I spent at least, on average, two hours a day in chess analysis. Every game played involved at least one hundred hours of analysis and was pure joy. When too tired to do anything else, I could always hunch over a chess board and work on hypothetical moves. As a result I slowly learned how to play 'deep' chess, where strategy was far more important than tactics, and the end of the game was almost being fashioned from the first few moves.

The beauty and fun of chess is, for me, connected far more to solid play and strategy than it is to winning. My most enjoyable game in 1983 was against Bob Hux - a draw - because of the quality of the play. Although I had a one pawn advantage going into the end-game, his end-game play was superior to mine, and I appreciated that.

I must thank the USCF for treating me, a Canadian, so well over the years. The Canadian postal service has been and is a disgrace. It is incredibly slow and I suspect that the old Pony Express from the late 1800's was faster. This is no joke. I believe it is true. But because of the graciousness of the USCF and my opponents, I was still able to complete most of my games. My warmest thanks must go to Joan DuBois. We never met but she was part of my cc life from the beginning.