Craig Berger


Educational Background:

It may be easier to list the schools I didn’t attend rather than the ones that I did but I’ll try anyway. My undergraduate experience consisted of a year at Clark University and a year at Brandeis, both in Massachusetts, a couple of summers at UCLA and ultimately a bachelor’s degree from NYU. I also have a transcript for a semester at George Washington University, even though I never set foot on their campus; I’m not sure why.

The list doesn’t end there. I earned a master’s degree in Psychology from the New School for Social Research, spent a year in a Psychology Doctoral program at Adelphi, and was awarded a Master of Arts in Professional Writing from USC. Go Cougars, Judges, Bruins, Bobcats, Colonials, Panthers and Trojans!

Work History:

Following a few unbelievably depressing years working with the mentally ill in Gramercy Park and the Bronx in New York, I taught chess to kids all over the city with the Chess-in-the-Schools program. After coming out to Los Angeles to study writing, I continued to pursue my chess career while winning or being a finalist in the occasional screenwriting contest. I stumbled upon CKMG just as they were coming out of the gate and stuck with them, churning out high quality articles month after month until finally earning a spot in house as the Head Writer.

Interests/Likes:

I have faced both Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov at the U.S. Chess Open and former Poker Player of the Year Men Nguyen at the Legends of Poker one-on-one, and had the better of both of them before finally succumbing. I am a renaissance man who will beat you soundly at chess, poker and possibly wine tasting and polo, even though I have never tried either..

Best Travel Story:

In the late ‘90s I traveled with a chess team as a coach to participate in the World Youth Games in Moscow. The city was post-communism and pre-economic shutdown and all the natives were super friendly and happy. We got to see kids from all over the world compete in all sorts of different sports and games, and our chess team was in contention until the final round. For a break, both coaches and kids got to go play chess with the natives in Protvino, a quaint out-of-the-way town that you would never guess housed brilliant scientific minds running a high-tech physics institute.

My Ideal Day:

Consists of the final day of a poker tournament, when you’ve already made the money and are just playing to see how high up the ladder you can climb.

FAVORITES

Movies:

  1. A Few Good Men

  2. The Right Stuff

  3. Bull Durham

  4. Fight Club

  5. Better off Dead

  6. True Romance

  7. Die Hard

  8. Star Wars

  9. The Terminator

  10. Escape from New York

Worst Movies:

  1. Edward Scissorhands

  2. Celebrity

  3. Hulk

  4. No Country for Old Men

  5. It’s a Wonderful Life

  6. Forrest Gump

  7. Spider-Man 3

  8. Rocky V

  9. Batman and Robin

  10. Gigli

Websites:

Google.com, Wikipedia.org and CKMG.com are pretty much all I need to get through the day.

Bands:

The Beatles, Green Day, Aimee Mann