Jeff Sarwer

In summer 2015 Sarwer participated in VI Shakkinet tournament in Finland. Sarwer scored 5/9, which was enough for IM-norm.

Sarwer was the subject of BBC World Service's programmeThe Interview on December 19, 2010, in which he candidly recounted his life and his childhood experiences and his relationship with his abusive father. He also spoke of successful years in United States real estate in his 20s and his current success on the professional poker circuit in Europe in his 30s.

Since December 2008, Sarwer has been playing on the European Poker Tour. He has had two final table appearances and earned about $500,000. In February 2010, Bluff Europe magazine ran a featured article about him and his new poker career. He is represented by the player agency Poker Icons.

After he disappeared at a very young age, many people thought Sarwer would not be seen playing chess again. In September 2007 he resurfaced to the chess scene, apparently without training and entered a 30-minute semi-rapid tournament at Malbork castle in Poland. He finished in third place with a score of 7/9 in a group of 86 players including four grandmasters. Since he had no active chess rating, he was given a provisional Elo rating of 2250 FIDE but seemed to perform above that level. In January 2010 Sarwer gave a long interview to Chess Life Online detailing his experiences from that tournament and talking about his current life in Europe. In August 2010, Sarwer was profiled in the Sunday Times Magazine talking about his father's methods, his chess career and his reappearance in public. Sarwer says that if he decided to make chess a priority, he would do so to become a grandmaster. "It would require at least two years of dedicated hardcore study and practice," he said, "especially in regards to opening preparation" for him to achieve that goal.

In 1993 the film Searching for Bobby Fischer was released and Jeff Sarwer's character was portrayed as "Jonathan Poe". In the film's final game, Poe declined the offer of a draw and eventually lost. In reality, Sarwer declined the draw offer by Josh Waitzkin, but the game ended in a draw (because of insufficient material) a few moves later. Under tournament tie-breaking rules, Waitzkin was determined to have played more challenging opponents during the overall competition and was awarded first place, but they were declared US Primary School co-champions. At the time that the game was played, Sarwer was 7 and Waitzkin 9 years old.

Sarwer won the under-10 World Youth Chess Championship in Puerto Rico in 1986 representing Canada.

At the age of 7, Sarwer 's enthusiasm for the game caught the attention of Grandmaster Edmar Mednis and he invited him to analyze the 1986 World Championship Match between Kasparov-Karpov on PBS. Sarwer and his sister Julia (who was also a world champion for girls under 10) continued to do this for the rematch in 1987 as well. After this Jeff and Julia became well known in media circles and appeared on various talk shows and were the subject of a documentary.

Jeffrey William Sarwer (born May 14, 1978) is a Canadian Finnish (dual citizenship) former child chess prodigy whose charismatic personality and chess talent made him a well-known media figure. His chess career and his family's unconventional lifestyle were the subjects of many articles and TV shows.