John L. Watson

Who is John L. Watson?

John Leonard Watson is a chess International Master and author.

Watson was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He was educated at Brownell-Talbot, Harvard, and the University of California at San Diego, where he took his degree in engineering. He has won many chess tournaments including the first US National High School Chess Championship and the American Open.

Watson is best known as a chess theorist and author, and has written more than thirty books on many aspects of chess. His 1999 book Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy won the British Chess Federation's Book of the year award as well as the United States Chess Federation Book of the Year. The successor volume Chess Strategy in Action was the Chesscafe Book of the Year. These two books explore and theorize how radically chess has changed since the early 20th century, and how old and supposedly 'time-tested' rules for the conduct of play have been replaced by broader and revolutionary practice over-the-board. These books have been translated into several languages. In a lighter vein, Watson wrote the Chessman comic book series, illustrated by Chris Hendrickson and Svein Myreng. Chessman Comics are now out-of-print collectors' items. Watson has a regular book review column at The Week in Chess, the publication of the London Chess Centre. He has a weekly Internet radio show 'Chess Talk with John Watson' on Chess.FM, the radio arm of the Internet Chess Club.