Meet the chess grandmaster who has Wall Street enamored: For around 25 years, Lev Alburt has been teaching strategy, patience, and prognostication to some of the biggest names on Wall Street, writes James Tarmey for Bloomberg Businessweek. In his modest apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the three-time US chess champion and notable Soviet Union defector teaches the likes of Carl Icahn, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, bnaire movie producer Ted Field, and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Stephen Friedman.

But what’s with this obsession in the finance world with chess? Alburt says the game helps traders think on their feet. “Strong chess players are good at making quick, usually correct decisions,” he says. “Traders are basically doing the same things as chess ­grandmasters: You have to make quick decisions in by definition uncertain circumstances.”

“There’s a great satisfaction in ­envisioning how something is going to play out and be right,” says student Doug Hirsch, who manages hedge fund Seneca Capital Investments LP. The game attracts the big names, including George Soros, who is a well-known and aggressive chess player, and Saba Capital founder Boaz Weinstein, a chess prodigy who reportedly got his start at Goldman Sachs, according to Tarmey.