DAVID LETTERMAN ASKED HOWARD STERN RECENTLY
”SO WHAT ABOUT THIS CHESS?” HOWARD RESPONDED
,
“I ACTUALLY PICKED UP CHESS TO BECOME BETTER AT BUSINESS. EVERYONE WOULD ALWAYS BE LIKE, IF YOU WANT TO BE BETTER AT BUSINESS, PICK UP CHESS BECAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A FEW MOVES AHEAD OF THE OTHER GUY.
“SO I STARTED PLAYING AND PRACTICING A LOT, AND I GOT UP TO AROUND 1800 RATING, WHICH IS RESPECTABLE.
“BUT THEN I REALIZED, I STILL SUCK AT BUSINESS!”
,
levelheaded approach to overcome chal- lenges; finding ways to bring various assets into harmony.
VICTOR PLOTKIN: Victor is a scholar of life, his knowledge and affinity for historical novels offers a timeline of vision and com- prehension unmatched by all but the most committed elite. A highly successful trader, Victor is always the calculating master chessman. His many awards and acco- lades provide only a small demonstration of his caliber and drive for excellence.
A.J. CARO: Mr. Caro’s out-of-the-box thinking and visionary leadership landed him on the Top 40 Under 40 Rising Stars list, compiled by Long Island Business News. He was honored at the 2005 Inspi- rational Ball for his achievements and inspiration to others. His entrepreneur- ial skills has given him the ability to foresee other businesses to success.
Even to my untrained eye, these bio’s
seemed very thin. I got in contact with Dr. Jonathan Knight, an expert on hedge funds, who agreed to review Genius Hedge Fund and to contribute to this article. In the way of an introduction to Chess Life readers, here is his bio:
Dr. Jonathan Knight is president of Cru- cian Transition, Inc., D/B/A CTI Capital
uschess.org
Management. His trading and investment experience includes mortgage derivative securities, structured credit, PIPE invest- ments and asset-based lending. He has also operated an operations outsourcing business as a service provider to other hedge funds. Prior to creating CTI, Dr. Knight was an owner of SIAM Capital Management Ltd. (Bahamas) and an employee of APAM, Inc. and Exxon Chem- ical Company. Dr. Knight holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT and has held a Series 7 designation and mem- bership in the Commercial Finance Association. Presentations include “The Coming Hedge Fund Meltdown,” Novem- ber 2005 to the Orlando Turnaround Management Association. His initial response was, “This and the website looks preposterous. If [we are] going to do a story [we] should expect it to end up being a negative piece for this fund. I would start by having them fill out a standard hedge fund questionnaire such as the attached.” With that in mind, I did several weeks of
research on the principals at Genius, even played through their available games, all press clippings, past businesses, every- thing. I called to interview them, using the AIMA’s (Alternative Investment Manage- ment Association) “Illustrative Questionnaire
for Due Diligence Review of Hedge Fund Managers” as a guide. No one answered Genius Hedge Fund’s telephone during weekday business hours. Instead a personal voice mail answered. I decided to try via e-mail, and got a quick response from Alex Robinovich, who agreed to be interviewed at 8 p.m., 03/30/2011. (See interview on p. 38.) Around the time of my third place class
finish at Foxwoods, I began to play around with some mathematical blackjack strate- gies. The strategy I employed I found out later was called “No Bust” and it is mathe- matically analogous to what Victor is describing. With some tweaks, I was able to basically sit at the table for hours, neither winning or losing. Other than “comping” a sweet suite, “No Bust” was a bust. Genius faces the added problem of
transaction fees. They certainly aren’t big enough to qualify for reduced fees, able to afford the computers to have an exe- cution edge or personnel to have a research edge. One million dollars is a Dr. Evil punchline for a reason ... Those were my concerns, Dr. Knight had these: GHF was formed in 2009, but was “launched” to the American public by an article in Newsday in January 2011 that (Continued on page 40, after interview)
Chess Life — July 2011 37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84