Dan Heisman (born 1950) is a
United States Chess FederationThe United States Chess Federation is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership...
National MasterA chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically can nearly always prevail against most amateurs...
and author. He is the two-time Open
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
champion of Philadelphia (1973 and 1976), and the Philadelphia Invitational Chess Champion (1973) His Penn State team won the U.S. Amateur Team Championship in 1972. Although rated over 2200 by both the United States Chess Federation and FIDE, he is currently inactive as a tournament player. Heisman is a member of the
International Computer Games AssociationThe International Computer Games Association was founded as the International Computer Chess Association in 1977 by computer chess programmers to organise championship events for computer programs and to facilitate the sharing of technical knowledge via the ICCA Journal.Renamed the 'ICGA' in...
and worked at both
Deep Blue versus Garry KasparovDeep Blue versus Garry Kasparov was a pair of famous six-game Human-computer chess matches played between the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue and the World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. The first match was played in February 1996 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kasparov won the match 4–2, losing one...
matches (1996 and 1997).
Heisman is related to
John HeismanJohn William Heisman was a prominent American football player and college football coach in the early era of the sport and is the namesake of the Heisman Trophy awarded annually to the season's best college football player.-Early life:He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up in Titusville,...
, the football coach who left the endowment for the
Heisman TrophyThe Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , named after the former college football coach John Heisman, is awarded annually by the Heisman Trophy Trust to the most outstanding player in collegiate football...
.
Dan Heisman (born 1950) is a
United States Chess FederationThe United States Chess Federation is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership...
National MasterA chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically can nearly always prevail against most amateurs...
and author. He is the two-time Open
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
champion of Philadelphia (1973 and 1976), and the Philadelphia Invitational Chess Champion (1973) His Penn State team won the U.S. Amateur Team Championship in 1972. Although rated over 2200 by both the United States Chess Federation and FIDE, he is currently inactive as a tournament player. Heisman is a member of the
International Computer Games AssociationThe International Computer Games Association was founded as the International Computer Chess Association in 1977 by computer chess programmers to organise championship events for computer programs and to facilitate the sharing of technical knowledge via the ICCA Journal.Renamed the 'ICGA' in...
and worked at both
Deep Blue versus Garry KasparovDeep Blue versus Garry Kasparov was a pair of famous six-game Human-computer chess matches played between the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue and the World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. The first match was played in February 1996 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kasparov won the match 4–2, losing one...
matches (1996 and 1997).
Heisman is related to
John HeismanJohn William Heisman was a prominent American football player and college football coach in the early era of the sport and is the namesake of the Heisman Trophy awarded annually to the season's best college football player.-Early life:He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up in Titusville,...
, the football coach who left the endowment for the
Heisman TrophyThe Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , named after the former college football coach John Heisman, is awarded annually by the Heisman Trophy Trust to the most outstanding player in collegiate football...
. Dan Heisman's paternal great-grandfather, Aaron, was John Heisman's first cousin.
Heisman is married to Shelly Hahn. His first wife, Susan "Holly" Hollis Bloom Heisman, died of breast cancer in 1994; they had one son, Delen, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Heisman was born in
Willow Grove, PennsylvaniaWillow Grove is a census-designated place in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles north of Philadelphia. The population was 16,234 at the 2000 census...
in 1950 and currently lives in
Wynnewood, PennsylvaniaWynnewood, Pennsylvania is a suburban community located outside of Philadelphia in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Wynnewood was named in 1691 for Dr. Thomas Wynne, William Penn's physician and the first Speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly...
.
Career
Heisman authors the award-winning Novice Nook columnist, aimed at improving adults, for the popular
Chess CafeChessCafe.com is a website that publishes endgame studies, book reviews and other articles related to chess on a weekly basis. It was founded in 1996 by Hanon Russell, and is well known as a repository of articles about chess and its history....
Web site. He has also written eight books on chess, including
Elements of Positional Chess Evaluation,
Everyone's 2nd Chess Book, and
Looking for Trouble.
Heisman is well known throughout the Philadelphia chess scene. His chess activities include promoting local chess, hosting a chess radio show "Ask the Renaissance Man" on
ICCThe Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members...
Webcast, and organizing events like the Philadelphia Championship and Philadelphia Junior Championship. He is currently a member of the Main Line Chess Club and the SE Scholastic Coordinator for the
Pennsylvania State Chess FederationThe Pennsylvania State Chess Federation is the official Pennsylvania affiliate of the United States Chess Federation. PSCF, is a 501 non-profit organization. Currently the highest ranking member is Alexander Shabalov. The president, of this organization, is Tom M Martinak....
. He maintains an extensive web page which provides information on Philadelphia area chess and many articles on chess improvement. Heisman is a chess tutor and among his current students is radio DJ
Howard SternHoward Allan Stern is an American radio and media personality most notable for his radio show which since January 9, 2006, has been broadcasting on Sirius XM, an uncensored satellite radio service...
.
Heisman began his career as an engineer and worked in that capacity with several organizations, including the Naval Air Development Center and Intermetrics, Inc. Later, Heisman became a Registered Investment Adviser in Pennsylvania; he has been a full-time chess instructor and author since 1996. He is also a member of the
Society for American Baseball ResearchThe Society for American Baseball Research was established in Cooperstown, New York, in August 1971 by Bob Davids. The Society's mission is to foster the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball, while generating interest in the game...
and had a baseball newsletter, "Baseball's Active Leaders". His hobbies include
backgammonBackgammon is a board game for two players in which the playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice. A player wins by removing all of his pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
, science fiction, collecting comic books, and following the Philadelphia sports teams. He helped mentor the 2007-08 National High School champion Dan Yeager, also from Hatboro-Horsham High School.
Education
Heisman graduated from
Hatboro-Horsham High SchoolHatboro-Horsham High School is a comprehensive public high school, serving grades 9 -12, located in Horsham, Pennsylvania, about 17 miles outside of Philadelphia. It is the only high school in the Hatboro-Horsham School District...
in Pennsylvania as the co-valedictorian in 1968, and was elected to the school's Hall of Fame in 2007. He attended Caltech and transferred to Penn State in 1969. In 1971 Heisman graduated at the top of his class earning a B.S. in Mathematics, and in 1983, again at the top of his class with a 4.0 G.P.A., received his Masters Degree in Engineering, both from The Pennsylvania State University.
External links