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Recently Fraser Nelson quoted the bestseller This Time is Different - Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, co-authored by Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the I M F . Not everyone knows that Rogoff acquired his talent for clinical analysis through playing chess. As an itinerant international chess player in his teens he used to sleep on the floor of my rooms at that hotbed of chess activity, Trinity College, Cambridge. He went on to become top board for the USA student team and a grandmaster with aspirations to the world title. Amongst his illustrious victims were Lajos Portisch and Sammy Reshevsky.
According to chessgames.com, Rogoff, who was born in 1953, learned chess from his father at age six, but took up the game in earnest when he was given his own chess set for his 13th birthday. By age 14, he was a master and New York State Open Champion, and shortly after became a senior...