Alex Sherzer

In the late 90s Sherzer pursued a medical degree at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, where he had befriended the Polgar sisters (Susan, Sofia, and Judit), each of whom was a renowned chess player; Susan was Women's World Champion. The Polgar household was then a gathering place for famous chess players, including Viswanathan Anand and Bobby Fischer. Through the introduction of a family friend and notable Washington DC attorney Julius Kaplan, Sherzer became an unwitting participant in an hysterical effort to bring Bobby Fischer, then an emigre, legally back to the United States. Kaplan succeeded in brokering a potential deal with the US State Department, though Fischer's racism and erratic demands prevented its fruition. The episode is recounted in Julius Kaplan's memoir Secrets and Suspense, International Law Stories (Academica Press, 2018). The following year, Sherzer began attending UMBC on a chess scholarship, taking courses in emergency health science.^[1]

In May 2003, while driving to Shreveport, Louisiana to begin a hospital internship, he was arrested in Mobile, Alabama for allegedly attempting to solicit sex from a 15-year-old-girl he met on the Internet.^[3][4][5] Although the prosecution managed to suppress over ninety percent of the evidence in Sherzer's favor, the jury produced a full acquittal. The episode is also recounted in the Kaplan memoir.

Sherzer was a practicing medical doctor in Florida and an active volunteer with Doctors Without Borders until his death on December 4, 2022, at the age of 51.^[6]

• Alex Sherzer player profile and games at Chessgames.com