Carol Jarecki
Carol Jarecki (born 1935) is an American chess organizer, an International Arbiter, and a chess writer.
Biography
A licensed pilot, she first became involved with chess as a "ChessMom", flying her young son, John Jarecki, who became the youngest ever chess master in U.S. history at the age of 12 in 1981 (the record was soon surpassed by a slightly younger Stuart Rachels), to various chess events in the United States. Soon, she started working at those tournaments and eventually became a certified tournament director at the highest National Tournament Director level. She has continued directing, although her son is no longer an active player. Jarecki earned her pilot licenses while living in Heidelberg, Germany, and flew extensively in Europe. She remains an active pilot, having flown her Cessna 210 throughout the United States, to Alaska and to many destinations in the Caribbean as far as St. Lucia, West Indies.
She has directed many prestigious chess events including serving as Head Tournament Director at several U.S. Chess Championships, SuperNational Scholastic Championships, National Elementary Championships, and World Opens in Philadelphia as well as many other national tournaments large and small. She has been the chief arbiter at the Bermuda International Open and associated invitationals for over 20 years.
She is also an International Arbiter recognized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation. She regularly works the World Chess Olympiad, sometimes as the Head Arbiter. She is also the Delegate from the British Virgin Islands to the FIDE Congress.
She was the Chief Arbiter at the PCA World Chess Championship match in 1995 in New York City held at the top of the World Trade Center, between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and challenger Viswanathan Anand. Jarecki was the arbiter and referee for the high-profile match between Kasparov and the IBM supercomputer program Deep Blue in 1997 in New York City, as well as the two Intel Grand Prix matches held there. She was the head arbiter for the HB Global Chess Challenge, Minneapolis 2005; this tournament had the richest prize fund, $500,000, for an Open tournament in chess history. It attracted over 50 Grandmasters and nearly 1,500 players.
Outside of chess, Jarecki is known for a very successful run of roulette winnings with her husband Dr. Richard Jarecki in the 1970s, playing in casinos in Monte Carlo and San Remo using a system based on finding roulette wheels biased by mechanical imperfections.
Jarecki now lives in Manhattan, New York and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Books
- Official Rules of Chess (Fourth Edition) ISBN 0-8129-2217-4 (with Bill Goichberg and Ira Lee Riddle)