James Vincent Eade

In the summer of 1972, in the midst of the Cold War, all eyes and ears were captivated by two men sitting across from each other, one from the United States and the other from the Soviet Union, squaring off in a game of intelligence, patience, concentration, and high-stakes international standing. At the end of the World Chess Championship, 29-year-old Bobby Fischer won against Boris Spassky over the course of 21 matches and became an undisputed world champion and national celebrity and hero. Among the countless enraptured viewers was 15-year-old James Vincent Eade in New Haven, Connecticut, who instantly gravitated toward the game. His father, Arthur Eade, started bringing home books for his son to study, which led to the two of them playing together often after dinner. He learned quickly and subsequently joined a local chess club, through which he started playing against several skilled adult chess players—many of whom were about the same age as his grandfather. Mr. Eade found solace in the game and considered it beneficial in navigating his tumultuous teenage years, and he enjoyed meeting and interacting with older adults who treated him as a peer. “It was an intergenerational experience,” he noted, and it meant a great deal to him.

Nine years after he began playing chess, Mr. Eade became a master and made a significant name for himself within the chess world, currently holding the title of FIDE Master. He attributes his success as a competitor to his innate ability to concentrate, be determined, and be resilient when faced with obstacles and setbacks. He knew that he wanted to give back in some way to the community through chess, and so he made it his mission to make the game as approachable and inclusive as possible, especially for young people. Since the 1990s, he has organized numerous prestigious tournaments, including the 1995 Pan Pacific International Chess Tournament in San Francisco, which attracted champions from around the globe, including Soviet and Swiss grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who ended up winning it all, and the 1996 Hall of Fame Tournament. He also founded Hypermodern Press, a chess-based publishing company that produced such titles as “Modern Chess Brilliancies,” “The Chess of Bobby Fischer,” and “The Big Book of Combinations,” among others. It was an extension of his own prolific career as an author: in 1991, he wrote about his chess strategies called “Remember the MacCutcheon,” and followed it up with “San Francisco 1995” and “Chess for Dummies” in 1996—an incredibly popular and digestible bestselling book that serves as a guide book for all levels of players and continues to be an essential text for those starting out. He also later wrote “The Chess Player’s Bible: Illustrated Strategies for Staying Ahead of the Game” in 2004 and “Chess Openings for Dummies” in 2010. Mr. Eade has also served as the editor and publisher of both CalChess Journal and Golden Gate Chess news.

Additionally, Mr. Eade has been a trustee for the U.S. Chess Trust since 2000, serving as president of the organization from 2010 to 2019, and has excelled as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Eade Foundation since 2019. The goal of the nonprofit foundation, which was formed not long after the death of his father, is to help promote chess literacy and notations, which allows players to preserve games for further study and to receive advice and counsel from advanced players. Viewing chess as “a social good,” the foundation strives to expand chess excellence to as many as possible, distributing chess sets and boards to those around the globe that may not be able to afford them on their own. A gifted teacher of the game, he consistently stress to his students that the goal of chess it to have fun, not get discouraged, and “be the best they can be, not to become the best ever.”

On top of his primary responsibilities in the realm of chess, Mr. Eade has also previously found success as president of the Chess Journalists of America, president of CalChess, Northern California Chess Federation, president of the Kolty Chess for Youth Federation, chairman of the chess advisory board at the University of Texas at Dallas, American Zone president of FIDE, and a delegate for the United Sates Chess Federation. As a testament to his profound impact, he has accrued numerous accolades, including being named as Chess Educator of the Year from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2016, an Outstanding Career Achievement Award from the United States Chess Federation in 2018, and an Award for Best Chess Website from the Chess Journalists of America in 2022.  “We are all one family,” he said of those who play. “It doesn’t matter where you came from. It doesn’t matter what language you speak. If you play chess, you’re part of our community.”

Mr. Eade prepared for and bolstered his professional journal by earning a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1978 and a Master of Arts in human resources management and organizational development from the University of San Francisco in 1991. Outside of chess, he has also been a freelance producer for IBM.TV and both a director and a senior systems programmer for Charles Schwab. In 2023, he wrote the book “Freedom: Your Path to Recovery,” which strives to help those who have struggled to conquer their addictions, informing readers that “Addiction does not have to be your master or your destiny!”