John Donaldson was born in Los Angeles but eventually made Seattle his home for over two decades. After getting a BA in history at the University of Washington in 1982, John completely dedicated himself to chess. He was captain of the U.S. Chess Olympic team six times (earning one silver and two bronze medals), and captain of the U.S. team at the World Team Championships twice (earning one gold and one silver medal).

Aside from his impressive playing and coaching credentials (His latest coaching gig--June, 2002--was in La Paz, Bolivia, where he trained the extremely talented Cindy Tsai [clear first] and Hikaru Nakamura [equal first].), Donaldson is also known as a chess historian, a highly thought of chess editor (he edited Northwest Chess Magazine from 1983-84, The Players Chess News from 1984-85, and worked as a staff member for Inside Chess for eleven years), and one of America’s finest chess writers with 22 books to his credit.

Presently Mr. Donaldson lives in Berkeley, California where he works as the chess director of the Mechanics Institute Chess Club.

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