ClaimsWarren Buffett

“Last year, Patrick played as many as six games simultaneously ¾ with his blindfold securely in place ¾ and this year will try for seven.”

Warren Buffett, Berkshire chairman 28 February 2002 Chairman's Letter (2001) (Berkshire Hathaway) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

At the 2001 Berkshire meeting, Patrick Wolff played as many as six blindfolded chess games simultaneously.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True: contemporaneous accounts show that Patrick Wolff played blindfold chess against several opponents at the same time at the 2001 Berkshire annual meeting, with a maximum of six simultaneous games. Mostly true: he gave blindfold simultaneous exhibitions at that meeting, but the maximum number differs by one, or the event was at an associated weekend event rather than the meeting itself. Mostly false: he played at the meeting, but not blindfolded, or with a clearly different number of games (for example three or fewer). False: evidence shows he did not play at the 2001 meeting weekend.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (2)

  1. E1 Patrick Wolff: From Chess Master To Value PM [VIDEO] Hedge Fund Alpha · 14 May 2013

    “Yahoo Finance posed a line of questions to Patrick Wolff, chief investment officer at Grandmaster Capital, on the sidelines of the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) shareholder meeting in Omaha, where he was a spectator and performer, showing off his skills playing blindfolded chess against six players at once.”
  2. E2 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting 2001 Transcript good-investing.net (third-party transcript, edited by the site)

    “I’m Warren Buffett, chairman of the board of directors of the company, and I welcome you to this 2001 annual meeting of shareholders.”

Reasoning

E1 is a 2013 report of Patrick Wolff playing blindfold chess against six players at once at a Berkshire meeting in Omaha. The quoted passage [E1] doesn't give the year of that meeting, so it does not show whether the exhibition it describes was the 2001 one. E2 shows only that a 2001 annual meeting took place and doesn't mention Wolff or chess. No contemporaneous account confirms the 2001 exhibition or how many games he played at once.

Cite this claim

Warren Buffett, “At the 2001 Berkshire meeting, Patrick Wolff played as many as six blindfolded chess games simultaneously.” (said 28 February 2002). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_4a1c57359e96, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_4a1c57359e96

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Warren Buffett, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

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  3. Resolved true Factual 18 September 2026
    “I have served Berkshire since 1965.”

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  4. Mostly true Factual 2025
    “She and her CNBC crew do a great job of both transmitting our meetings worldwide and archiving much Berkshire-related material.”

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  5. Resolved true Factual 2025
    “I was lucky enough to get an education at three fine universities.”

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All of them

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