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In real life, I live in Park Ridge, Illinois (a Chicago suburb, and hometown of Hillary Clinton), with my wife, daughter, dog, and three cats. Professionally, I am an attorney. I published an article, "Waiver in the Federal Courts," in the Fall 1996 issue of the Appellate Law Review. I have since written a book on the same subject, entitled "Waiver of Arguments in the Seventh Circuit," that ABA Publishing offered to publish as an e-book. In August 2015, I received a CPA certificate.
I hold the titles of National Master (awarded in 1983) and Senior Master of Correspondence Chess (awarded in 1997) from the United States Chess Federation.[1] The International Correspondence Chess Federation awarded me the title of Correspondence Chess Master in 2024. I finished with an even score (+2 =8 -2) in the 1997 United States Absolute Championship, which is open to the top 13 correspondence players in the United States who accept their invitations, and with the same score (=12) in that event in 2023. I am currently playing in the 2024 event.
I have published two of my best chess games in Chess Informant, both of which were also cited in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and other works. (See below for games.) Chess Informant's panel of grandmaster judges also cited the first game, Rhine-Sprenkle, as the 8th-9th most theoretically important game in Volume 32 of Chess Informant.
I have primarily written and contributed to chess-related articles in Wikipedia. I am particularly proud of my articles First-move advantage in chess, George H. D. Gossip, and Swindle (chess). The first two of these have been promoted to Featured Article, the highest rating on Wikipedia. Only about 2,700 of the 3.1 million articles in the English Wikipedia are Featured Articles. Of almost 4,100 chess-related articles on Wikipedia, these are two of only four Featured Articles. They appeared as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page of Wikipedia on March 21 and December 6, 2009. Only about one out of every 1,400 articles ever becomes Today's Featured Article.
I have also written articles about the American Chess Quarterly, John Washington Baird, Rosendo Balinas, Jr., the Balogh Defense, Joseph Bertin, the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, Henry Charlick, Chess theory, Istvan Csom, the Czech Defense, desperado (chess), dice chess, G.H. Diggle, the English Defense, Frederick Esling, Edward Freeborough, Ellen Gilbert, Golden Knights (chess), John Grefe, James Grundy (chess player), James Hanham, Carsten Hansen, Robert Hess (chess player), the Horwitz Defense, Henry Hosmer, the Immortal losing game, the Irish Gambit, the Italian Game, the Jerome Gambit, Lubomir Kavalek, Kieninger Trap, Atanas Kolev, Bogdan Lalic, Le Palamède, Anatoly Lein, James A. Leonard, the List of Ethnic Chess Openings (renamed the List of chess openings named after places after surviving a vote for deletion), Napoleon Marache, Mihail Marin, Max Lange Attack, Dragoljub Minić, Leopold Mitrofanov, Hugh Myers, the Nakamura Trap, the Norwegian Defense, the Parham Attack, the Peruvian Immortal, Petar Popovic, Arshak Petrosian, the Polish Defense, the Polish Immortal, Charles Ranken, Ilya Smirin, Jeff Sonas, Mihai Suba, William Wayte, White and Black in chess, John G. White, and Michael Wilder; writing most of the article about Fred Reinfeld, which had been a stub; completely rewriting Chess Player's Chronicle and X-ray (chess); adding a lot of content to Henry Ernest Atkins, Leonard Barden, Bird's Opening, Black Knights' Tango, Boden's mate, Amos Burn, Checkmate, Chess handicap, Jan Hein Donner, Double check, Dunst Opening, Englund Gambit, Larry Evans, Bobby Fischer, Fortress (chess), Glossary of chess, Gisela Kahn Gresser, Hippopotamus Defence, Latvian Gambit, Francis Joseph Lee, David Levy (chess player), Andor Lilienthal, List of world records in chess, Maróczy Bind, Marshall Defense, Owen's Defence, Passed pawn, Ponziani Opening, Promotion (chess), Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, Ortvin Sarapu, Scotch Game, Gregory Serper, Sicilian Defence, Sisters (Lynne Cheney novel), Stalemate, Howard Staunton, Staunton Gambit, Mir Sultan Khan, Touch-move rule, Vienna Game, Wade Defence, John Herbert White, Baruch Harold Wood, World Chess Championship 1972, World Junior Chess Championship, Zugzwang, and Zwischenzug; and contributing to myriad other articles.
Chess historian Edward Winter referred to two of my articles in his famous Chess Notes Internet column:
5919. Wikipedia
It is impossible not to have misgivings, both general and particular, about Wikipedia, but we have recently noticed a great improvement in some of the chess articles in the site’s English-language version. There is, for instance, excellent treatment of G.H.D. Gossip, and it is also good to see a fine article on Hugh Myers.
I also wrote an article about February 12, 1809, probably the greatest birthday in history: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, two of the greatest men in history, were both born on that date. Newsweek thought the subject was significant enough for a cover story, but to my dismay the Wikipedia community voted to delete my article. My article about the blog Echidne of the Snakes met the same sad fate.
I am also interested in law, liberal politics and blogging. If acting in plays (rather than films) counted toward a Bacon number, I would have a Bacon number of 3, having acted in school plays with Chris Rolfes, who has a Bacon number of 2.
My aunt, Frances Olsen, is the subject of a Wikipedia article, as are two of my law school suite-mates, Rockard Delgadillo and Monica Medina, and Ron Klain, Monica's husband. As a lawyer, I met Barack Obama back before he held any political office, and have shaken his hand on five occasions. I have a Morphy Number of 4 (many grandmasters today have one of 5), having drawn a game online against Leonard Barden, one of the few living players with a Morphy Number of 3. I have a better record against Viktors Pupols (one draw) than Bobby Fischer (one loss) did.