Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I moved this blog to http://www.chesscommunity.net/affairs.aspx where you can find some posts from this blog and new ones.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Vladislav Tkachiev falls asleep at the board
Philippe Naughton
A Russian-born chess maverick has caused a stir by falling asleep at the board after reportedly turning up drunk at a grandmasters' tournament in India.
Vladislav Tkachiev, 35, who was was born in Moscow, raised in Kazakhstan and now plays as a Frenchman, had to concede a game at the Calcutta Open and could face further sanctions from the game's governing body.
Tkachiev completed only 15 moves in an hour in a third-round match against India's Praveen Kumar after repeatedly dozing off.
“Each time he fell asleep, players around would try to wake him up with a shake of the shoulder,” the Indian Express newspaper reported, alongside photos showing Tkachiev with his head resting on the table.
“Some even offered him water and Tkachiev, having briefly refreshed himself at the change-room while his opponent waited, dozed off again and eventually had to be carried off."
Tkachiev, who is officially ranked 58th in the world, is known as one of the more colourful, fast-living characters on the chess circuit.
He has often expressed his frustration at the glacial speed and endless endgames of classical chess, championing instead the rapid-fire "blitz chess" which he says better suits his temperament as a player and which the public prefers.
"Blitz modifies the reality," he once said in an interview. "During the game light seems brighter, and beer sweeter."
In 2005 Tkachiev and his brother Evegeny - known as "the Blitz Brothers" - angered many chess traditionalists when they set up the "World Chess Beauty Contest", an online contest to find the world's sexiest female player.
Although some highly-ranked female players supported the contest as a valid bid to raise the profile of the game, others dismissed it as degrading and exploitative "soft pawn".
Among those supporting the contest was the British grandmaster Nigel Short, who joined the "chess chicks" judging panel.
But Short, newly recrowned as the UK's top player at the age of 44, expressed his disgust at Tkachiev's behaviour in Calcutta and reportedly asked for the player to be ejected from the tournament.
Soumen Majumnder, the co-organiser of the newspaper said that Tkachiev would have to wait until the after the tournament to decide whether he faces a sanction from chess authorities.
“What happened is unfortunate, it's in bad taste," he told the newspaper. “It’s in bad taste. Once the event is over, we will hold a meeting and decide how to proceed against this player."
Saturday, August 22, 2009
US Chess Federation election results
August 17, 2009 The ballots have been counted for election of four members of the US Chess Federation (USCF), and the result is a very strong vote of confidence for Bill Goichberg’s management of the organization. Goichberg has long been a levelheaded promoter of chess tournaments, and it is apparent that USCF members regard him as a businessman with excellent credentials for managing the affairs of the organization. Chess players are themselves specialists at their game and experience has shown that Grandmasters are not necessarily good business executives.
The election of course was held against a background of severe and expensive disputation in the courts. The battle is a tripartite one, among Sam Sloan, Susan Polgar, and Paul Truong (Polgar’s husband) and the USCF executive board, revolving around alleged identity and e-mail theft. Whatever the result in the courts, the Goichberg ticket, consisting of himself, Jim Berry, Ruth Haring, and Mike Atkins carried the day convincingly. A total of 4,379 ballots were received. Berry, a banker from Oklahoma (originally from Massachusetts), who has sponsored many tourneys, led the field with 3,030 votes, 16 more that Goichberg’s 3,014. Haring, an IWM and business woman from California, received 2,952, and Atkins, an active tournament director from Virginia, 2,672. The next closest was Michael Korenman, a chess promoter from Kansas and Chicago, with 822 votes.
It appears that under the Goichberg tutelage, the USCF has managed to avoid falling off the cliff of bankruptcy, though it has often traversed the very edge. The USCF has recently been blessed with legacies of over a half million dollars, but nearly all of it has been spent under Goichberg’s management of litigation costs. As of now, the USCF seems to have ample cash to keep going and probably will save substantial sums by shifting many of its magazine subscriptions to the Internet.
It may also seek a Section 501(c)(3) charitable exemption from the US, which, if granted, will enable it to save some postal charges and permit donors to deduct donations. Many years ago, the USCF was denied this exemption, and the US Chess Trust was created to aid it with respect to chess activities. If the USCF receives a new favorable ruling, the USCF and the trust (which has more than a half million dollars of assets) will be in competition for donations. The USCF will be able to use donations for all of its activities (including litigation), whereas the trust confines its functions to chess charitable donations, most of which are historically sponsored by the USCF.
Monday, August 17, 2009
More links regarding USCF - Susan Polgar - Sam Sloan lawsuits
From the USCF forum:
For a completely unofficial and not terribly reverent account of the current litigation:
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/01/lawsuits.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/01/lawsuits-saga-continues.htmlhttp://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/02/mean%20...%20mbers.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/03/liti%20...%20pdate.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/04/stil%20...%20world.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/04/further-update.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/05/bria%20...%20uzzle.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-of-these-things-is-not-like-other.htmlhttp://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/07/feds-step-in.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/07/litigation-update-in-which-parties.html
From www.chess.com:
http://www.chess.com/article/view/lawsuits-chess-and-susan-polgar
For a completely unofficial and not terribly reverent account of the current litigation:
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/01/lawsuits.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/01/lawsuits-saga-continues.htmlhttp://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/02/mean%20...%20mbers.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/03/liti%20...%20pdate.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/04/stil%20...%20world.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/04/further-update.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/05/bria%20...%20uzzle.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-of-these-things-is-not-like-other.htmlhttp://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/07/feds-step-in.html
http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/07/litigation-update-in-which-parties.html
From www.chess.com:
http://www.chess.com/article/view/lawsuits-chess-and-susan-polgar
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
USCF Revokes Memberships of Polgar and Truong
From USCF webside
By Bill Hall
August 10, 2009
The USCF voted Friday night to revoke the memberships of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. Polgar and Truong appealed the revocations to the Board of Delegates on Saturday and the revocations were upheld by a vote of 55-21 (Polgar) and 58-18 (Truong).
Comments
Post: #157872 by machinelf on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:39 am
As a life member of the USCF, I am deeply saddened to see how low a few key players have brought this organization. Goichberg and his cronies have all but destroyed the USCF, and for what? The myopic, selfish little political games they continue to play serve only themselves, and I am ashamed that they have managed to dupe so many members into thinking otherwise. Enjoy your little mountaintops while you can.
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Post: #157876 by xplor on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:53 am
Can you elaborate? Can you name any member of the executive board since 2002 that Susan Polgar and company have not sued or threatened to sue? I am satisfied with the performance of the delegates this last weekend.xplor
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Post: #157905 by Jonathan_Hilton on Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:08 am
My only regret is that this did not happen at last year's meeting. Anyone who sues the USCF for $10 million should have his or her membership from the organization revoked, and certainly should not serve on the Executive Board. I am happy that the bylaws amendments along those lines passed more or less unanimously during open session.
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Post: #157915 by Harry Payne on Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:41 am
The People who tried (and failed) to destroy the USCF was none other than Susan Polgar and her hubby. They received what was just, and I am sure there is more(much more) justice to come from the Courts.
If Susan and Paul can find a mountain top, I would suggest they look around and see all those they have angered.
They might better serve themselves, by getting out of this mess with as little damage as they can. Providing Susan does not end up in a Federal Prison, along with Mr. Alexander.
But then that is just my take on it." Where there is no vision, the people Fail "In love of the game. Harry Payne
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Post: #157937 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:31 pm
The Executive Board action seems more like retaliation for fully legal actions than a rational reaction. Let the courts do their job, make decisions in the respective cases, or let out-of-court negotiations work. There is no need to do this harsh discipline as it will not lead to any particular improvements. Membership revokation only provides for further hang-ups -- I'd rather move on with more memberships than be penalized by not being able to play either Truong or Polgar in a rated event.One respondent mentions Federal Prisions -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code. The "Federal Prisions" arguement is an excellent example of fanning the flames of retaliation, and much more becomes an excellent justification for not doing the membership revokation.
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Post: #157940 by fpawn on Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:58 pm
Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aignerhttp://fpawn.blogspot.com
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Post: #157943 by TPGriffin76 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:13 pm
fpawn wrote:.The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
Well summarized, and accurate. Thank you, delegates, for representing us well here and taking a logical course.
Now let's move on and play some chess.
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Post: #157954 by Jonathan_Hilton on Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:15 pm
BugEater1 wrote:I'd rather move on with more memberships than be penalized by not being able to play either Truong or Polgar in a rated event. One respondent mentions Federal Prisions -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code.
Actually, the "punishment" for Susan and Paul was very, very light. They were simply removed from the Executive Board in the most harmless way possible. They are no longer allowed to be USCF members, but they are still allowed to play in rated tournaments via the Tournament Membership route. That said, Polgar has played in only one serious USCF tournament in three years. Even if we hadn't allowed them to continue playing in rated events, it would not have been a tremendous loss to the chess world (in my opinion).
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Post: #157960 by bruce_leverett on Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:38 pm
BugEater1 wrote:One respondent mentions Federal Prisons -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code. The "Federal Prisons" arguement is an excellent example of fanning the flames of retaliation, and much more becomes an excellent justification for not doing the membership revokation.
There is in fact an ongoing Federal criminal case; here is a link to an article about it from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/us/18indict.html?_r=2
Of course, "innocent until proven guilty" is an important thing to remember here. But the implication is that it's gone beyond just two groups of chess organizers fighting with each other. Some government prosecuting attorney thinks that a crime has been committed, and thinks that he can get a conviction.
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Post: #157983 by EnriqueHuerta on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:19 pm
How does this affect Susan's FIDE representation? Will she no longer be listed under the USA?
- EnriqueEnrique Huerta Tucson, Az
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Post: #158003 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:46 pm
Thank you for the NY Times reference. Having read that article, I found that neither Ms. Polgar, nor Mr. Truong, are defendants in that particular case.
Part of my objections to these membership revocations is that there appears to be no USCF violations. I've read the USCF Code of Ethics many times, and there is no language regarding bringing suit against the USCF.
As a USCF Certified TD, I'd rather have the option/obligation to take entries from Ms. Polgar and/or Mr. Truong. Now, I am obligated to reject their entry.
The membership revocations were just a bad move. The USCF should have let the court systems do their jobs.
Many of my chess opinions are concluded with "Go Play Chess! Go Have Fun!" (Sam Harris, Justice of the Peace, March 20, 2001). Seems appropriate to conclude with that quotation here, too.
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Post: #158004 by RichTNYC on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:47 pm
fpawn wrote:There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget.
Well the immediate result of this is that the USCF has lost two more members, and their dues. This puts the organization into an even deeper financial hole.
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Post: #158007 by chexmates on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:51 pm
fpawn wrote:Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
the members have not spoken loud and clear. Not even 10% of members vote in the elections. How is that speaking loud and clear? and i understand the lawsuit situation, but what legally justifies revoking their memberships (point at the lawsuit if u wish, but i mean what was the illegal function that made the ruling? is it illegal to sue the federation?)
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Post: #158017 by Harry Payne on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:12 pm
chexmates wrote:fpawn wrote:Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
the members have not spoken loud and clear. Not even 10% of members vote in the elections. How is that speaking loud and clear? and i understand the lawsuit situation, but what legally justifies revoking their memberships (point at the lawsuit if u wish, but i mean what was the illegal function that made the ruling? is it illegal to sue the federation?)
There are three types of members: 1. Those who do what gets done.2. Those who watch what gets done.3. Those who have no clue whats been done
Yourself, bug-eater, and Rich seem to be lost somewhere in that 3rd group. It might help, if you at least take the time to appraise yourselves of a few of the "facts". It is painfully plain you do not have much knowledge of the issues. A common problem with most supporters of Susan and her hubby. They only know what Susan and her hubby tell them.
Just my take on it.
" Where there is no vision, the people Fail "
In love of the game. Harry Payne
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Post: #158019 by chexmates on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:19 pm
harry, I've read both sides. But you conveniently refused to answer my last question. What justifies revoking their memberships? Is there something in the bylaws that says that you cannot sue? I understand opinions of the situation, but what do the laws themselves say? The laws speak louder than "well I think because..." answers.
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Post: #158023 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:35 pm
Ahh! There it is! Character assassinations. Some people just get off on character assassination with their chess involvement. I'd rather play chess. I'd rather play chess without the character assassination. As a TD, I prefer more people available to play chess, rather than 2 less internationally titled players.
Taking the USCF to court is not a violation of USCF policy.
Where Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong are concerned, I can certainly agree with removal from the Executive Board. Removal from the membership lists was quite clearly retaliation, a very strong over-reaction, and totally unwarranted.
"Go Play Chess! Go Have Fun!" (Sam Harris, Justice of the Peace, March 20, 2001)
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Post: #158027 by texasrob on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:58 pm
Shades of grey! I understand why they needed to be removed, since involving the Federation in legal disputes puts the Federation at risk, and burdens it with mounting legal expenses. Many of us where at the crossroads, and some felt this was the quickest and easiest solution. Before we rush to pat ourselves on the back, we should recognize that the legal disputes will continue for years to come.I have a problem with an organization that can condone murderers, rapist, and other assorted criminals to be members, but needs to remove the membership of two with a political and legal dispute. I am for removing from governance, but I do not see revoking life member’s memberships. Where is our concern for those that have contact with our scholastic members and we do not check their background or remove their memberships? This seems selective, and maybe now we should think of having a mechanism for these people to play rated games and receive Chess Life, but not be members.Robert SturgeonSecretary - Texas Chess AssociationAlternate Delegate - TexasPlease note: Nothing I post here represents the opinions of anyone but myself
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Post: #158053 by alkanet96 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:53 pm
Great decision! Great logic! Now you have to take Women Chess Champion title from Polgar and give it to Mr. Goichberg. And do not forget to punish all members who do not agree with your wise moves!
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Post: #158055 by oldtimer on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:02 pm
It's a good day for the USCF. Regardless of your feelings for the USCF board or other politicians, Paul Truong has had a great deal of time to explain why three computers said he placed thousands of pornographic and slanderous messages on the internet. Polgar had plenty of time to explain why her and Paul didn't admit that she was married until just before the end of the election. Some may buy Polgar explanation for her husband's apparent behavior or the fact that her internet expert is now charged with an internet crime but my guess is that the number of people who believe her explanations is growing smaller by the hour. We need to help this people along by continuing to let members know the facts. Nothing more or less. It's our obligation to chess and the USCF. Thank you delegates for your votes and service to the organization.
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Post: #158073 by Randy Hough on Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:49 am
To correct two of the misstatements above: organizers are not obligated to reject their tournament entries, as they're still allowed to play if they wish. And as life members, they weren't paying any dues.
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Post: #158077 by chessoffice on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:08 am
chexmates wrote:harry, I've read both sides. But you conveniently refused to answer my last question. What justifies revoking their memberships? Is there something in the bylaws that says that you cannot sue? I understand opinions of the situation, but what do the laws themselves say? The laws speak louder than "well I think because..." answers.
The bylaws say that the Executive Board "may revoke or suspend the membership of any member for good cause" and continue, "In the event that the Executive Board shall revoke or suspend the membership of an individual or affiliate....., it shall, prior to taking such action, give to the individual or affiliate 30 days written notice of the proposed action. Within said time said individual or affiliate may submit in writing to the Executive Board reasons why such actions should not be taken. The Executive Board may thereafter, if it sees fit, act upon the written suggestion or set a date for a hearing to be held at or prior to the next Annual Meeting of the Federation, but before the meeting of the Board of Delegates. Any person or affiliate aggrieved by any action of the Executive Board may appeal to the Board of Delegates at the said Annual Meeting if the action is taken at said meeting, or at the next meeting of the Board of Delegates. The Board shall affirm, reverse, or modify the action of the Executive Board."
For the official list of causes provided together with the 30 days notice go to uschess.org, click "About USCF," then "Governance," then "Reports," and then "2009.07.06-Polgar Suspension" and "2009.07.06-Truong Suspension."
Bill Goichberg
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Post: #158079 by chessoffice on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:18 am
texasrob wrote:Shades of grey! I understand why they needed to be removed, since involving the Federation in legal disputes puts the Federation at risk, and burdens it with mounting legal expenses. Many of us where at the crossroads, and some felt this was the quickest and easiest solution. Before we rush to pat ourselves on the back, we should recognize that the legal disputes will continue for years to come.I have a problem with an organization that can condone murderers, rapist, and other assorted criminals to be members, but needs to remove the membership of two with a political and legal dispute. I am for removing from governance, but I do not see revoking life member’s memberships. Where is our concern for those that have contact with our scholastic members and we do not check their background or remove their memberships? This seems selective, and maybe now we should think of having a mechanism for these people to play rated games and receive Chess Life, but not be members.
Yes, criminals can be USCF members and indeed the federation has a prison chess program, as we feel that chess has redemptive value. However, murderers have not murdered the USCF. Suing the USCF for $10 million is an attempt to destroy the USCF, and the other causes charged such as illegally accessing USCF's confidential lawyer-client privilege emails also have damaged the USCF.
Bill Goichberg
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Post: #158080 by Jet Schizo on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:24 am
By suing the USCF for $10 million, the effect was to strip the federation of money given to it by us - the members. The money comes from our pockets - our membership fees and donations. Money that was supposed to go to advancing chess - bringing chess to children and the world at large. The law suit sought to take our contributions and place them in the pockets of Polgar and Truong.
That is disgusting on every level. It would also tend to dampen the energy of those who regularly contribute to the US chess cause via the USCF as well as corporate sponsorship. Who wants to have their corporate name mixed up with any of this? It will take years to get rid of this problem and US chess will suffer. That is so very wrong considering the incredible talent we have in the US chess scene right now with Nakamura, Robson etc.
I am an attorney but I do not speak as to the technicalities of the case. I am just speaking on moral grounds. If Polgar and Truong felt hurt they should have sucked it up and taken it on the chin rather than trying to financially bust the USCF by going for the money we the members gave. Sometimes life calls on you to sacrifice your best interest for the interest of a greater good. By trying to get $10 million from the USCF, they put their own greed in front of US chess.
It was wrong on every level and they do not deserve membership.
USCF member Lee Donofrio
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Post: #158098 by BugEater1 on Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:36 am
As a USCF certified TD, I have always been told that USCF membership was (is) required for participation in USCF rated events. Now, Mr. Hough (perhaps others) suggests that I will still be able to admit Polgar and/or Truong to events which I direct. If this is so, then what is the purpose of the membership revokations? What is achieved by these membership revokations?
Do I really get to admit non-USCF members to my events? Whether they be Polgar/Truong or someone completely new to USCF chess, or persons placed on USCF suspension, do really I get to admit them? -- And not be subsequently penalized?
Perhaps what is needed here is a complete definition of the recent Executive/Delegates Board actions.
Exactly what is required of entrants to USCF rated events, beyond paying any required entry fees?
I do strongly recommend that the USCF Governance provide some of the definitions which answer these questions. I really do not want to have my TD certificate revoked for admitting ineligible participants to my events. I'd rather be obliged to admit persons who are USCF members.
By Bill Hall
August 10, 2009
The USCF voted Friday night to revoke the memberships of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. Polgar and Truong appealed the revocations to the Board of Delegates on Saturday and the revocations were upheld by a vote of 55-21 (Polgar) and 58-18 (Truong).
Comments
Post: #157872 by machinelf on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:39 am
As a life member of the USCF, I am deeply saddened to see how low a few key players have brought this organization. Goichberg and his cronies have all but destroyed the USCF, and for what? The myopic, selfish little political games they continue to play serve only themselves, and I am ashamed that they have managed to dupe so many members into thinking otherwise. Enjoy your little mountaintops while you can.
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Post: #157876 by xplor on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:53 am
Can you elaborate? Can you name any member of the executive board since 2002 that Susan Polgar and company have not sued or threatened to sue? I am satisfied with the performance of the delegates this last weekend.xplor
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Post: #157905 by Jonathan_Hilton on Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:08 am
My only regret is that this did not happen at last year's meeting. Anyone who sues the USCF for $10 million should have his or her membership from the organization revoked, and certainly should not serve on the Executive Board. I am happy that the bylaws amendments along those lines passed more or less unanimously during open session.
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Post: #157915 by Harry Payne on Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:41 am
The People who tried (and failed) to destroy the USCF was none other than Susan Polgar and her hubby. They received what was just, and I am sure there is more(much more) justice to come from the Courts.
If Susan and Paul can find a mountain top, I would suggest they look around and see all those they have angered.
They might better serve themselves, by getting out of this mess with as little damage as they can. Providing Susan does not end up in a Federal Prison, along with Mr. Alexander.
But then that is just my take on it." Where there is no vision, the people Fail "In love of the game. Harry Payne
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Post: #157937 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:31 pm
The Executive Board action seems more like retaliation for fully legal actions than a rational reaction. Let the courts do their job, make decisions in the respective cases, or let out-of-court negotiations work. There is no need to do this harsh discipline as it will not lead to any particular improvements. Membership revokation only provides for further hang-ups -- I'd rather move on with more memberships than be penalized by not being able to play either Truong or Polgar in a rated event.One respondent mentions Federal Prisions -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code. The "Federal Prisions" arguement is an excellent example of fanning the flames of retaliation, and much more becomes an excellent justification for not doing the membership revokation.
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Post: #157940 by fpawn on Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:58 pm
Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aignerhttp://fpawn.blogspot.com
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Post: #157943 by TPGriffin76 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:13 pm
fpawn wrote:.The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
Well summarized, and accurate. Thank you, delegates, for representing us well here and taking a logical course.
Now let's move on and play some chess.
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Post: #157954 by Jonathan_Hilton on Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:15 pm
BugEater1 wrote:I'd rather move on with more memberships than be penalized by not being able to play either Truong or Polgar in a rated event. One respondent mentions Federal Prisions -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code.
Actually, the "punishment" for Susan and Paul was very, very light. They were simply removed from the Executive Board in the most harmless way possible. They are no longer allowed to be USCF members, but they are still allowed to play in rated tournaments via the Tournament Membership route. That said, Polgar has played in only one serious USCF tournament in three years. Even if we hadn't allowed them to continue playing in rated events, it would not have been a tremendous loss to the chess world (in my opinion).
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Post: #157960 by bruce_leverett on Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:38 pm
BugEater1 wrote:One respondent mentions Federal Prisons -- well, that is not going to happen until someone is brought before Federal Court, and for violations of Federal code. The "Federal Prisons" arguement is an excellent example of fanning the flames of retaliation, and much more becomes an excellent justification for not doing the membership revokation.
There is in fact an ongoing Federal criminal case; here is a link to an article about it from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/us/18indict.html?_r=2
Of course, "innocent until proven guilty" is an important thing to remember here. But the implication is that it's gone beyond just two groups of chess organizers fighting with each other. Some government prosecuting attorney thinks that a crime has been committed, and thinks that he can get a conviction.
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Post: #157983 by EnriqueHuerta on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:19 pm
How does this affect Susan's FIDE representation? Will she no longer be listed under the USA?
- EnriqueEnrique Huerta Tucson, Az
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Post: #158003 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:46 pm
Thank you for the NY Times reference. Having read that article, I found that neither Ms. Polgar, nor Mr. Truong, are defendants in that particular case.
Part of my objections to these membership revocations is that there appears to be no USCF violations. I've read the USCF Code of Ethics many times, and there is no language regarding bringing suit against the USCF.
As a USCF Certified TD, I'd rather have the option/obligation to take entries from Ms. Polgar and/or Mr. Truong. Now, I am obligated to reject their entry.
The membership revocations were just a bad move. The USCF should have let the court systems do their jobs.
Many of my chess opinions are concluded with "Go Play Chess! Go Have Fun!" (Sam Harris, Justice of the Peace, March 20, 2001). Seems appropriate to conclude with that quotation here, too.
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Post: #158004 by RichTNYC on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:47 pm
fpawn wrote:There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget.
Well the immediate result of this is that the USCF has lost two more members, and their dues. This puts the organization into an even deeper financial hole.
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Post: #158007 by chexmates on Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:51 pm
fpawn wrote:Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
the members have not spoken loud and clear. Not even 10% of members vote in the elections. How is that speaking loud and clear? and i understand the lawsuit situation, but what legally justifies revoking their memberships (point at the lawsuit if u wish, but i mean what was the illegal function that made the ruling? is it illegal to sue the federation?)
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Post: #158017 by Harry Payne on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:12 pm
chexmates wrote:fpawn wrote:Anyone who sits on the Executive Board of a non-profit organization while suing the organization for $25 Million (later reduced to $10M) deserves the wrath of the Delegates. There is simply no way you can effectively lead the organization while suing it for nearly 10 times its annual budget. Fortunately, the vast majority of Delegates present in Indianapolis understood this concept. The appeals were rejected by about a 3:1 margin.
The action by the Delegates mirrors the results of the recent election, when the candidates endorsed by Polgar were defeated by a similar margin. Except for a few vocal dissidents, I think we can safely say that the USCF members have spoken loud and clear.
Michael Aigner
the members have not spoken loud and clear. Not even 10% of members vote in the elections. How is that speaking loud and clear? and i understand the lawsuit situation, but what legally justifies revoking their memberships (point at the lawsuit if u wish, but i mean what was the illegal function that made the ruling? is it illegal to sue the federation?)
There are three types of members: 1. Those who do what gets done.2. Those who watch what gets done.3. Those who have no clue whats been done
Yourself, bug-eater, and Rich seem to be lost somewhere in that 3rd group. It might help, if you at least take the time to appraise yourselves of a few of the "facts". It is painfully plain you do not have much knowledge of the issues. A common problem with most supporters of Susan and her hubby. They only know what Susan and her hubby tell them.
Just my take on it.
" Where there is no vision, the people Fail "
In love of the game. Harry Payne
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Post: #158019 by chexmates on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:19 pm
harry, I've read both sides. But you conveniently refused to answer my last question. What justifies revoking their memberships? Is there something in the bylaws that says that you cannot sue? I understand opinions of the situation, but what do the laws themselves say? The laws speak louder than "well I think because..." answers.
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Post: #158023 by BugEater1 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:35 pm
Ahh! There it is! Character assassinations. Some people just get off on character assassination with their chess involvement. I'd rather play chess. I'd rather play chess without the character assassination. As a TD, I prefer more people available to play chess, rather than 2 less internationally titled players.
Taking the USCF to court is not a violation of USCF policy.
Where Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong are concerned, I can certainly agree with removal from the Executive Board. Removal from the membership lists was quite clearly retaliation, a very strong over-reaction, and totally unwarranted.
"Go Play Chess! Go Have Fun!" (Sam Harris, Justice of the Peace, March 20, 2001)
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Post: #158027 by texasrob on Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:58 pm
Shades of grey! I understand why they needed to be removed, since involving the Federation in legal disputes puts the Federation at risk, and burdens it with mounting legal expenses. Many of us where at the crossroads, and some felt this was the quickest and easiest solution. Before we rush to pat ourselves on the back, we should recognize that the legal disputes will continue for years to come.I have a problem with an organization that can condone murderers, rapist, and other assorted criminals to be members, but needs to remove the membership of two with a political and legal dispute. I am for removing from governance, but I do not see revoking life member’s memberships. Where is our concern for those that have contact with our scholastic members and we do not check their background or remove their memberships? This seems selective, and maybe now we should think of having a mechanism for these people to play rated games and receive Chess Life, but not be members.Robert SturgeonSecretary - Texas Chess AssociationAlternate Delegate - TexasPlease note: Nothing I post here represents the opinions of anyone but myself
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Post: #158053 by alkanet96 on Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:53 pm
Great decision! Great logic! Now you have to take Women Chess Champion title from Polgar and give it to Mr. Goichberg. And do not forget to punish all members who do not agree with your wise moves!
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Post: #158055 by oldtimer on Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:02 pm
It's a good day for the USCF. Regardless of your feelings for the USCF board or other politicians, Paul Truong has had a great deal of time to explain why three computers said he placed thousands of pornographic and slanderous messages on the internet. Polgar had plenty of time to explain why her and Paul didn't admit that she was married until just before the end of the election. Some may buy Polgar explanation for her husband's apparent behavior or the fact that her internet expert is now charged with an internet crime but my guess is that the number of people who believe her explanations is growing smaller by the hour. We need to help this people along by continuing to let members know the facts. Nothing more or less. It's our obligation to chess and the USCF. Thank you delegates for your votes and service to the organization.
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Post: #158073 by Randy Hough on Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:49 am
To correct two of the misstatements above: organizers are not obligated to reject their tournament entries, as they're still allowed to play if they wish. And as life members, they weren't paying any dues.
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Post: #158077 by chessoffice on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:08 am
chexmates wrote:harry, I've read both sides. But you conveniently refused to answer my last question. What justifies revoking their memberships? Is there something in the bylaws that says that you cannot sue? I understand opinions of the situation, but what do the laws themselves say? The laws speak louder than "well I think because..." answers.
The bylaws say that the Executive Board "may revoke or suspend the membership of any member for good cause" and continue, "In the event that the Executive Board shall revoke or suspend the membership of an individual or affiliate....., it shall, prior to taking such action, give to the individual or affiliate 30 days written notice of the proposed action. Within said time said individual or affiliate may submit in writing to the Executive Board reasons why such actions should not be taken. The Executive Board may thereafter, if it sees fit, act upon the written suggestion or set a date for a hearing to be held at or prior to the next Annual Meeting of the Federation, but before the meeting of the Board of Delegates. Any person or affiliate aggrieved by any action of the Executive Board may appeal to the Board of Delegates at the said Annual Meeting if the action is taken at said meeting, or at the next meeting of the Board of Delegates. The Board shall affirm, reverse, or modify the action of the Executive Board."
For the official list of causes provided together with the 30 days notice go to uschess.org, click "About USCF," then "Governance," then "Reports," and then "2009.07.06-Polgar Suspension" and "2009.07.06-Truong Suspension."
Bill Goichberg
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Post: #158079 by chessoffice on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:18 am
texasrob wrote:Shades of grey! I understand why they needed to be removed, since involving the Federation in legal disputes puts the Federation at risk, and burdens it with mounting legal expenses. Many of us where at the crossroads, and some felt this was the quickest and easiest solution. Before we rush to pat ourselves on the back, we should recognize that the legal disputes will continue for years to come.I have a problem with an organization that can condone murderers, rapist, and other assorted criminals to be members, but needs to remove the membership of two with a political and legal dispute. I am for removing from governance, but I do not see revoking life member’s memberships. Where is our concern for those that have contact with our scholastic members and we do not check their background or remove their memberships? This seems selective, and maybe now we should think of having a mechanism for these people to play rated games and receive Chess Life, but not be members.
Yes, criminals can be USCF members and indeed the federation has a prison chess program, as we feel that chess has redemptive value. However, murderers have not murdered the USCF. Suing the USCF for $10 million is an attempt to destroy the USCF, and the other causes charged such as illegally accessing USCF's confidential lawyer-client privilege emails also have damaged the USCF.
Bill Goichberg
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Post: #158080 by Jet Schizo on Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:24 am
By suing the USCF for $10 million, the effect was to strip the federation of money given to it by us - the members. The money comes from our pockets - our membership fees and donations. Money that was supposed to go to advancing chess - bringing chess to children and the world at large. The law suit sought to take our contributions and place them in the pockets of Polgar and Truong.
That is disgusting on every level. It would also tend to dampen the energy of those who regularly contribute to the US chess cause via the USCF as well as corporate sponsorship. Who wants to have their corporate name mixed up with any of this? It will take years to get rid of this problem and US chess will suffer. That is so very wrong considering the incredible talent we have in the US chess scene right now with Nakamura, Robson etc.
I am an attorney but I do not speak as to the technicalities of the case. I am just speaking on moral grounds. If Polgar and Truong felt hurt they should have sucked it up and taken it on the chin rather than trying to financially bust the USCF by going for the money we the members gave. Sometimes life calls on you to sacrifice your best interest for the interest of a greater good. By trying to get $10 million from the USCF, they put their own greed in front of US chess.
It was wrong on every level and they do not deserve membership.
USCF member Lee Donofrio
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Post: #158098 by BugEater1 on Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:36 am
As a USCF certified TD, I have always been told that USCF membership was (is) required for participation in USCF rated events. Now, Mr. Hough (perhaps others) suggests that I will still be able to admit Polgar and/or Truong to events which I direct. If this is so, then what is the purpose of the membership revokations? What is achieved by these membership revokations?
Do I really get to admit non-USCF members to my events? Whether they be Polgar/Truong or someone completely new to USCF chess, or persons placed on USCF suspension, do really I get to admit them? -- And not be subsequently penalized?
Perhaps what is needed here is a complete definition of the recent Executive/Delegates Board actions.
Exactly what is required of entrants to USCF rated events, beyond paying any required entry fees?
I do strongly recommend that the USCF Governance provide some of the definitions which answer these questions. I really do not want to have my TD certificate revoked for admitting ineligible participants to my events. I'd rather be obliged to admit persons who are USCF members.
Comments regarding revoking memberships of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong
Posted by: Chessmaster at Aug. 10, 2009 at 10:17:54 am
It appears Pual Truong forgot to mention that the revocation of Suan's and his memberships were upheld by the USCF Board of Delegates the next day.
Paul and Susan were given approx 75 minutes to talk present their side of the matter and they chose to bring in their attorney Mr. Leigh who is representing them in some of the lawsuits.
An overwhelming majority of the almost 80 delgates in attendance voted to upheld the the Executive Board's revocation of their memberships.
Paul new exactly why the USCF took this action in Inidanapolis. The Board of Delegates meet only once a year at the US Open Chess Tournament and the timing of the action allowed Paul and Susan to appeal the revocation to the Board of Delegates the next day.
Posted by: Vidmar at Aug. 10, 2009 at 1:33:20 pm
Susan Polgar and Paul Truong had their memberships revoked for just cause. She was represented by counsel at the Executive Board hearing on revocation on Friday evening and again during her appeal that was heard the following day by the full USCF House of Delegates. Also on Saturday, the USCF House of Delegates ratified all Executive Board actions taken during the past year. With great specificity, the Delegates ratified the commencement of legal actions against Polgar and Truong in California (in which Ms. Polgar's chessdiscussion.com webmaster, Gregory Alexander, was indicted on 34 counts of email hacking and one count of aggravated identity theft. Mr. Alaexander was arrested last month by the US Secret Service during the second day of court ordered mediation in San Francisco. He was arraigned and released on $100,000 bail.)Texas and Illinois.
Ms. Polgar has charged me and 13 other defendants with defaming her, and yet, at her deposition taken under oath at the end of June, she could not produce even one false statement made about her by any of the defendants despite being given two days to produce same. Her litigation is nothing more than a sham designed to silence her USCF critics. The delegates saw through all of Polgar and Truong's posturing and acted properly in revoking thir memberships for just cause.
Posted by: n-weymouth at Aug. 11, 2009 at 3:46:17 am
Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided if Mr. Truong had been willing to testify under oath whether he had posted obscene Usenet messages under the name of Sam Sloan, whom Mr. Truong defeated in election to the USCF Executive Board. (Mr. Sloan has stated the he was subsequently expelled from the Marshall Chess Club in New York City.) It is unfortunate that Ms. Polgar raised the stakes by making unsupported allegations in a suit at law.
It has been suggested in a USCF forum that Ms. Polgar's initials, in the SPICE program, might support instead a name change to South Plains Institute for Chess Excellence.
It appears Pual Truong forgot to mention that the revocation of Suan's and his memberships were upheld by the USCF Board of Delegates the next day.
Paul and Susan were given approx 75 minutes to talk present their side of the matter and they chose to bring in their attorney Mr. Leigh who is representing them in some of the lawsuits.
An overwhelming majority of the almost 80 delgates in attendance voted to upheld the the Executive Board's revocation of their memberships.
Paul new exactly why the USCF took this action in Inidanapolis. The Board of Delegates meet only once a year at the US Open Chess Tournament and the timing of the action allowed Paul and Susan to appeal the revocation to the Board of Delegates the next day.
Posted by: Vidmar at Aug. 10, 2009 at 1:33:20 pm
Susan Polgar and Paul Truong had their memberships revoked for just cause. She was represented by counsel at the Executive Board hearing on revocation on Friday evening and again during her appeal that was heard the following day by the full USCF House of Delegates. Also on Saturday, the USCF House of Delegates ratified all Executive Board actions taken during the past year. With great specificity, the Delegates ratified the commencement of legal actions against Polgar and Truong in California (in which Ms. Polgar's chessdiscussion.com webmaster, Gregory Alexander, was indicted on 34 counts of email hacking and one count of aggravated identity theft. Mr. Alaexander was arrested last month by the US Secret Service during the second day of court ordered mediation in San Francisco. He was arraigned and released on $100,000 bail.)Texas and Illinois.
Ms. Polgar has charged me and 13 other defendants with defaming her, and yet, at her deposition taken under oath at the end of June, she could not produce even one false statement made about her by any of the defendants despite being given two days to produce same. Her litigation is nothing more than a sham designed to silence her USCF critics. The delegates saw through all of Polgar and Truong's posturing and acted properly in revoking thir memberships for just cause.
Posted by: n-weymouth at Aug. 11, 2009 at 3:46:17 am
Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided if Mr. Truong had been willing to testify under oath whether he had posted obscene Usenet messages under the name of Sam Sloan, whom Mr. Truong defeated in election to the USCF Executive Board. (Mr. Sloan has stated the he was subsequently expelled from the Marshall Chess Club in New York City.) It is unfortunate that Ms. Polgar raised the stakes by making unsupported allegations in a suit at law.
It has been suggested in a USCF forum that Ms. Polgar's initials, in the SPICE program, might support instead a name change to South Plains Institute for Chess Excellence.
Tech chess star removed from national organization
By Adam D. Young AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Monday, August 10, 2009
Chess champion and Texas Tech chess institute founder Susan Polgar's U.S. Chess Federation membership was revoked Friday.
The organization's board of directors revoked her membership and her husband Paul Truong's membership Friday in Indianapolis, Truong said. Polgar and Truong were elected members of the federation, each holding the title of board member-at-large, according to the federation's Web site.
Truong said he believes the board's actions were in response to Polgar's still-pending federal lawsuits in Texas, California and Illinois against associates of the federation.
"These same people that revoked our memberships are the same people that we're suing in California and Texas and Illinois," he said.
In the suit filed in the court of U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings, Polgar alleges some high-ranking federation associates conspired to use the Internet and media outlets, including The Avalanche-Journal, to defame and slander her because they are jealous of her success.
"The moment when we took the position at Tech, Susan became a target of her own success," Truong said.
Polgar, an Olympic-medal winning chess player, and Truong founded the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence at Tech in 2007.
Federation president Bill Goichberg, who is named as a defendant in Polgar's suit in Texas, in an e-mail Sunday evening declined to comment on his organization's reasons for revoking the couple's memberships. He said details about the organization's decision soon could be posted on its Web site, www.uschess.org.
Other federation board members named in the suit did not respond to Avalanche-Journal e-mail and phone requests Sunday afternoon for comment about the couple's membership revocations.
Truong said he believes board members chose to revoke their memberships while in Indianapolis to coincide with the federation's U.S. Open chess tournament - held Aug. 1-9 - and the coinciding World Chess Live Tournament of College Champions. Tech student Gergely Antal won the national title at the college tournament.
"(Board members) make sure that they do it in the brightest and biggest spotlight ... to make sure that they take away the attention," he said.
Polgar directed Avalanche-Journal questions about her next course of action to her lawyer, who did not return A-J phone messages Sunday afternoon.
Truong, who also declined to comment on details of the couple's next course of action, said he expects the board's decision will eventually be overturned.
"We have absolutely no doubt that not only our memberships but our statuses on the board will be reinstated," he said.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Chess champion and Texas Tech chess institute founder Susan Polgar's U.S. Chess Federation membership was revoked Friday.
The organization's board of directors revoked her membership and her husband Paul Truong's membership Friday in Indianapolis, Truong said. Polgar and Truong were elected members of the federation, each holding the title of board member-at-large, according to the federation's Web site.
Truong said he believes the board's actions were in response to Polgar's still-pending federal lawsuits in Texas, California and Illinois against associates of the federation.
"These same people that revoked our memberships are the same people that we're suing in California and Texas and Illinois," he said.
In the suit filed in the court of U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings, Polgar alleges some high-ranking federation associates conspired to use the Internet and media outlets, including The Avalanche-Journal, to defame and slander her because they are jealous of her success.
"The moment when we took the position at Tech, Susan became a target of her own success," Truong said.
Polgar, an Olympic-medal winning chess player, and Truong founded the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence at Tech in 2007.
Federation president Bill Goichberg, who is named as a defendant in Polgar's suit in Texas, in an e-mail Sunday evening declined to comment on his organization's reasons for revoking the couple's memberships. He said details about the organization's decision soon could be posted on its Web site, www.uschess.org.
Other federation board members named in the suit did not respond to Avalanche-Journal e-mail and phone requests Sunday afternoon for comment about the couple's membership revocations.
Truong said he believes board members chose to revoke their memberships while in Indianapolis to coincide with the federation's U.S. Open chess tournament - held Aug. 1-9 - and the coinciding World Chess Live Tournament of College Champions. Tech student Gergely Antal won the national title at the college tournament.
"(Board members) make sure that they do it in the brightest and biggest spotlight ... to make sure that they take away the attention," he said.
Polgar directed Avalanche-Journal questions about her next course of action to her lawyer, who did not return A-J phone messages Sunday afternoon.
Truong, who also declined to comment on details of the couple's next course of action, said he expects the board's decision will eventually be overturned.
"We have absolutely no doubt that not only our memberships but our statuses on the board will be reinstated," he said.
2 Are Voted Off Board That Governs Chess Group
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Published: August 9, 2009
A feud among members of the board of the United States Chess Federation that has spawned several lawsuits took another turn over the weekend when four members of its six-member board voted to kick the other two members out of the federation.
The votes effectively removed Susan Polgar and Paul Truong from the board, said Bill Hall, the federation’s executive director. He said the bylaws of the federation, the governing body of chess, require board members to be federation members.
After the vote, Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong, who are married, appealed the decision to the federation’s delegates, who had convened in Indianapolis for their annual convention. The decision was upheld.
Phone calls to Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were not returned.
Whitney Leigh, Ms. Polgar’s lawyer in a lawsuit the federation brought against her in California, said at the Indianapolis meeting: “We are disappointed but by no means surprised in the outcome because it was run by a majority of the executive board who were determined to disregard the U.S.C.F.’s bylaws and to do everything they could to prevent the delegates from hearing the facts.” He said he thought that Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were still board members and that they would seek to block the decision through an appeal to the judge hearing the California case.
In that case, brought last year, the federation claims that Ms. Polgar and Gregory Alexander, a federation member who ran a chess discussion Web site for Ms. Polgar, stole e-mail messages between members of the board and a lawyer hired by the federation. The lawyer, Karl S. Kronenberger, had been hired to look into accusations that Mr. Truong posted obscene messages online in the names of other federation members. Mr. Alexander has been indicted for stealing the e-mail messages. Phone calls to Mr. Alexander have not been returned.
Ms. Polgar has sued the federation, its board and members of the federation in Lubbock, Tex., where she lives, claiming libel, slander and business disparagement. She is asking for $25 million. A third suit, filed by the federation, is pending in Illinois, where the federation is incorporated. It seeks the removal of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong from the federation’s board, but it may be moot now, Mr. Hall said.
The federation, which has about 85,000 members, had about $3.3 million in revenues in the fiscal year that ended in June, Mr. Hall said. He said the lawsuits cost about $400,000 last year.
The disputes began in October 2007, when Samuel H. Sloan, a former board member, filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan accusing Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong of writing the obscene Internet messages, many under Mr. Sloan’s name.
Mr. Sloan, who said the postings were meant to ensure his defeat when he ran for re-election to the board in 2007, also named the federation as a defendant. His lawsuit was dismissed last year. Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were elected; Mr. Sloan was defeated.
Before the suit’s dismissal, the federation hired Mr. Kronenberger to look into whether Mr. Truong had made the postings. Mr. Kronenberger concluded that he had and presented his findings at last year’s delegates meeting, where some members tried to initiate a recall of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong but failed.
Randy Bauer, a board member, said the removal of the two members succeeded because “the issue was ripe for consideration. We heard from many of the delegates last year that we need time to see this play out, and now they have had that time.”
Published: August 9, 2009
A feud among members of the board of the United States Chess Federation that has spawned several lawsuits took another turn over the weekend when four members of its six-member board voted to kick the other two members out of the federation.
The votes effectively removed Susan Polgar and Paul Truong from the board, said Bill Hall, the federation’s executive director. He said the bylaws of the federation, the governing body of chess, require board members to be federation members.
After the vote, Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong, who are married, appealed the decision to the federation’s delegates, who had convened in Indianapolis for their annual convention. The decision was upheld.
Phone calls to Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were not returned.
Whitney Leigh, Ms. Polgar’s lawyer in a lawsuit the federation brought against her in California, said at the Indianapolis meeting: “We are disappointed but by no means surprised in the outcome because it was run by a majority of the executive board who were determined to disregard the U.S.C.F.’s bylaws and to do everything they could to prevent the delegates from hearing the facts.” He said he thought that Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were still board members and that they would seek to block the decision through an appeal to the judge hearing the California case.
In that case, brought last year, the federation claims that Ms. Polgar and Gregory Alexander, a federation member who ran a chess discussion Web site for Ms. Polgar, stole e-mail messages between members of the board and a lawyer hired by the federation. The lawyer, Karl S. Kronenberger, had been hired to look into accusations that Mr. Truong posted obscene messages online in the names of other federation members. Mr. Alexander has been indicted for stealing the e-mail messages. Phone calls to Mr. Alexander have not been returned.
Ms. Polgar has sued the federation, its board and members of the federation in Lubbock, Tex., where she lives, claiming libel, slander and business disparagement. She is asking for $25 million. A third suit, filed by the federation, is pending in Illinois, where the federation is incorporated. It seeks the removal of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong from the federation’s board, but it may be moot now, Mr. Hall said.
The federation, which has about 85,000 members, had about $3.3 million in revenues in the fiscal year that ended in June, Mr. Hall said. He said the lawsuits cost about $400,000 last year.
The disputes began in October 2007, when Samuel H. Sloan, a former board member, filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan accusing Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong of writing the obscene Internet messages, many under Mr. Sloan’s name.
Mr. Sloan, who said the postings were meant to ensure his defeat when he ran for re-election to the board in 2007, also named the federation as a defendant. His lawsuit was dismissed last year. Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were elected; Mr. Sloan was defeated.
Before the suit’s dismissal, the federation hired Mr. Kronenberger to look into whether Mr. Truong had made the postings. Mr. Kronenberger concluded that he had and presented his findings at last year’s delegates meeting, where some members tried to initiate a recall of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong but failed.
Randy Bauer, a board member, said the removal of the two members succeeded because “the issue was ripe for consideration. We heard from many of the delegates last year that we need time to see this play out, and now they have had that time.”
Monday, July 20, 2009
Gregory Alexander Indicted by Federal Grand Jury on Alleged Identity Theft and Computer Fraud from Chess Web Site www.chessdiscussion.com
From fugitive.com
A 42-year-old man was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose Wednesday for the unauthorized access of the private e-mail account of a member of a nonprofit organization’s board of directors, U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced Friday. Gregory Alexander, a resident of Everett, Wash., used a username and password belonging to Randall Hough, a member of the United States Chess Federation’s Board of Directors, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Alexander accessed Hough’s private e-mail account on 34 different occasions between November 2007 and June 2008 to obtain information from it, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Alexander is the webmaster of www.chessdiscussion.com, a Web site with a forum for chess players to talk about the game. Alexander was arrested in San Francisco and made his initial appearance in federal court in San Jose Friday to face charges of computer fraud and aggravated identity theft. He is currently out of custody on a $100,000 personal recognizancebond, and is scheduled to be in court again at 9 a.m. on Aug. 3, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A 42-year-old man was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose Wednesday for the unauthorized access of the private e-mail account of a member of a nonprofit organization’s board of directors, U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced Friday. Gregory Alexander, a resident of Everett, Wash., used a username and password belonging to Randall Hough, a member of the United States Chess Federation’s Board of Directors, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Alexander accessed Hough’s private e-mail account on 34 different occasions between November 2007 and June 2008 to obtain information from it, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Alexander is the webmaster of www.chessdiscussion.com, a Web site with a forum for chess players to talk about the game. Alexander was arrested in San Francisco and made his initial appearance in federal court in San Jose Friday to face charges of computer fraud and aggravated identity theft. He is currently out of custody on a $100,000 personal recognizancebond, and is scheduled to be in court again at 9 a.m. on Aug. 3, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
U.S. Chess Federation Lawsuit Becomes Criminal Issue
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAINPublished: July 17, 2009
A dispute among board members of the United States Chess Federation that has prompted several lawsuits has now become a criminal matter.
A member of the federation was arraigned Friday in Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., and charged with identity theft and breaking into the e-mail account of a federation board member.
According to the indictment, the accused, Gregory Alexander of Everett, Wash., accessed the e-mail account of the board secretary, Randall Hough, at least 34 times.
The federation has alleged in a lawsuit that Mr. Alexander read messages between Mr. Hough and an outside counsel hired by the federation, the governing body of chess. The counsel, Karl S. Kronenberger, had been hired to investigate accusations that two federation members posted thousands of obscene and defamatory messages on Internet bulletin boards under the name of a board member in order to get themselves elected to the board.
A woman who answered the phone at Mr. Alexander’s residence declined to comment early Friday evening.
The two members, Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, who are married, were elected in July 2007. Ms. Polgar, who was the women’s world champion from 1996 to 1999, is the oldest of three highly successful Hungarian-born chess-playing sisters. The youngest, Judit, is the only woman ever to be ranked in the top 10 players in the world.
Many of the messages were posted in the name of Samuel H. Sloan of the Bronx, who lost in his bid for re-election to the board in 2007.
Mr. Sloan filed a lawsuit over the postings in 2007, naming Ms. Polgar, Mr. Truong, the federation and others as defendants. That case was dismissed in August 2008. But before it was, the federation hired Mr. Kronenberger to look into Mr. Sloan’s claims. Mr. Kronenberger concluded that Mr. Truong was responsible for the Web postings.
The federation subsequently filed a lawsuit to have Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong removed from the board. Ms. Polgar filed her own suit against the federation last August, claiming libel, slander and “business disparagement.”
In the course of Mr. Kronenberger’s investigation, Ms. Polgar quoted on her chess Web site some of the e-mail messages he exchanged with other board members.
In an interview last year, Ms. Polgar said, “the messages were public knowledge; they were on the Internet.”
In June 2008, the federation, contending that the e-mail messages had been stolen, filed yet another lawsuit seeking to force Internet service providers to turn over the protocol addresses that had been used to gain access to the board’s e-mail accounts.
Based on the responses it received to the subpoenas, the federation amended its suit in October, naming as defendants Ms. Polgar and Mr. Alexander, who has managed Ms. Polgar’s chess discussion Web site.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
The USCF Election 2009
URGENT! USCF EXECUTIVE BOARD ELECTION
by Bill Goichberg
Please vote in this crucial election for four members of the seven person USCF Executive Board. Ballots will be in the June issue of Chess Life and the TLA Newsletter, and any member age 16 or over, who was also a member on April 30, may vote. Members who do not receive a ballot may request one from the USCF office.
The Executive Board currently includes a member who has sued USCF, the organization she has a fiduciary duty to support and protect, for $25 million (later reduced to $10 million), a lawsuit I believe is totally without merit. Her husband, who has refused to deny under oath charges that he made many anonymous and defamatory internet posts, is also on the Board. If two candidates are elected who support or tolerate the outrageous conduct of these two, I believe that the Federation will be in great peril. See www.uschess.org/legalupdates for details regarding numerous legal problems that USCF now faces.
See www.checkmate.us for my detailed commentary on the election. I am a candidate for re-election to the Board, but am not eligible to continue as President due to a term limit. The Board elects the President, so with the support of just two more Board members out of the four to be elected, the next President of USCF could actually be someone who has an active lawsuit against the Federation which, if successful, would bankrupt the organization! Don't let this happen! Please vote for BILL GOICHBERG, JIM BERRY, RUTH HARING, AND MIKE ATKINS.
by Bill Goichberg
Please vote in this crucial election for four members of the seven person USCF Executive Board. Ballots will be in the June issue of Chess Life and the TLA Newsletter, and any member age 16 or over, who was also a member on April 30, may vote. Members who do not receive a ballot may request one from the USCF office.
The Executive Board currently includes a member who has sued USCF, the organization she has a fiduciary duty to support and protect, for $25 million (later reduced to $10 million), a lawsuit I believe is totally without merit. Her husband, who has refused to deny under oath charges that he made many anonymous and defamatory internet posts, is also on the Board. If two candidates are elected who support or tolerate the outrageous conduct of these two, I believe that the Federation will be in great peril. See www.uschess.org/legalupdates for details regarding numerous legal problems that USCF now faces.
See www.checkmate.us for my detailed commentary on the election. I am a candidate for re-election to the Board, but am not eligible to continue as President due to a term limit. The Board elects the President, so with the support of just two more Board members out of the four to be elected, the next President of USCF could actually be someone who has an active lawsuit against the Federation which, if successful, would bankrupt the organization! Don't let this happen! Please vote for BILL GOICHBERG, JIM BERRY, RUTH HARING, AND MIKE ATKINS.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Chess battles rage in court, not on boards
By BRUCE RUSHTON (bruce.rushton@sj-r.com)
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jun 06, 2009 @ 11:30 PM
Chess can be as knockdown, drag-out as roller derby, pro wrestling or ultimate cage fighting. Just check the court files.
Lawsuits pending in Springfield are the latest in a legal brawl that spans the nation and pits some of the greatest minds in chess against each other. At stake, some say, is the very survival of the U.S. Chess Federation, which has set up a legal defense fund to pay for a half-dozen lawsuits in four states, including Illinois, the corporate home of America’s official governing body of chess.
In one corner sit Zsuzsa “Susan” Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, both members of the USCF executive board, who have sued the USCF.
In the other are fellow board members, who have sued back. In a pending Sangamon County lawsuit, the USCF and its board are asking a judge to remove Polgar and Truong from the board. Polgar and Truong, meanwhile, are trying to kick the case up to federal court in Springfield, claiming that some matters of law must be heard under federal law.
It wouldn’t be the first time a federal judge has waded into the jungle of litigation that is consuming big-time chess in the United States.
Besides Illinois, lawsuits have been filed in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Texas. Allegations include computer hacking, slander, libel, resume puffing, fraud, negligence, infliction of emotional distress, violation of federal RICO statutes and board members impersonating other board members in online discussion forums, which have included no shortage of taunts and name-calling. It is, essentially, a series of cyber-squabbles that have morphed into lawsuits.
The legal fights have, quite literally, taken the fun out of the game, says Mark Berling, a Toledo attorney who formed a chess team at his daughter’s elementary school last year. With 50 kids playing this year, it’s proven a promising endeavor. But Berling has decided against encouraging students to join the USCF.
“The last thing I wanted them to do was log on (to the USCF Web site) and have their parents find out about this kind of lunacy,” Berling said.
THE PLAYERS
Susan Polgar and her family are legends in the chess world. She didn’t return an e-mail or phone call from The State Journal-Register, nor did her husband. But Polgar doesn’t hold back in describing herself in court documents. When she sued the USCF in Texas last year, she devoted two full pages to her background.
Born in Hungary, Polgar won her first tournament at age 4. Ranked the world’s best female chess player at 15, she says she forced the World Chess Federation to drop the word “men’s” from a championship tournament after she qualified for matches never before open to women. And she isn’t considered the best player in her family. That honor goes to her younger sister, Judit, who once bested five opponents in simultaneous matches while playing blindfolded, and at 16 beat former world champion Boris Spassky, walking away with $110,000.
As children, Susan Polgar and her two sisters were home-schooled, with as many as eight hours a day devoted to chess and reported visits from such superstars as Bobby Fischer, whose mark of youngest-ever grandmaster was surpassed by Judit.
In 2007, Texas Tech University hired Polgar to coach its chess team, granting her an honorary doctorate and the privilege of speaking at commencement exercises. She is paid $127,500 a year.
Less is known about Polgar''s husband, Truong, although he was hired by Texas Tech along with his wife (he’s paid $76,500 a year).
When running for the USCF board in 2007, Truong in a written campaign statement said he had 20 years of experience in “senior management, marketing and PR.” But Troung’s critics say he boasts of academic degrees he never earned and jobs he never held.
“Following the 2007 Executive Board election, USCF discovered that Truong made numerous dishonest and misleading representations during his Executive Board campaign, including that he had earned a Ph.D. and MBA and that he had held multiple high-level marketing positions with billion-dollar companies,” the USCF says in the Sangamon County lawsuit that seeks his ouster. “All of those representations are false.”
Furthermore, the plaintiffs say, Truong and Polgar hid the fact that they were married until after they won election to the board.
“We don’t know exactly when she got married,” says Samuel Sloan, a former board member who once considered himself a friend of Polgar but has now sued her and Truong in New York.
A book publisher who studied math at the University of California at Berkeley, Sloan has experience in courtrooms. Acting as his own attorney, Sloan won a 9-0 ruling from the U.S.
Supreme Court in a suit he had brought against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sloan hasn’t been as successful in his legal battle against Polgar and Truong, which he also is handling without benefit of a lawyer. A judge has dismissed the lawsuit, and Sloan is now before an appeals court. Win or lose, Sloan’s case marked the beginning of legal wars that have consumed organized chess in the United States, and his accusations echo in Springfield and beyond.
THE FAKE SAM SLOAN
Sloan remembers the day easily.
It was June 25, 2005. Sloan was flying to Chicago to play a grudge match against a CPA he says had been stalking him on the Internet with baseless charges of pedophilia. It was a $1,000 purse.
When Sloan landed in Illinois, he discovered someone had posted a message in his name on an Internet chess message board while he was en route. To an outsider, the posting critical of sitting board members doesn’t sound too bad, especially considering that Sloan was running for the board. But there were more messages, at least 2,500 more, to be precise. And they weren’t all innocuous.
Some contained homophobic references to USCF officials. Others were laced with profanity. Sloan says some of his own postings were lifted from a section of the USCF’s Web site that is accessible only to a few and pasted in public forums where anyone could see them, and with only a word or two changed.
Making matters worse, the Fake Sam Sloan spawned imitators, Sloan alleges, as many as four at one time. Most didn’t last long, he says in his lawsuit, which of necessity includes some fairly tortured language as he describes the situation:
“The Real Fake Sam Sloan continued persistently for more than a solid year with no breaks, whereas the Fake Fake Sam Sloans would quit after a week or two,” Sloan writes.
Sloan, who won a special election to fill a vacancy on the USCF board in 2006, lost an election for a full four-year term in 2007, when Truong and Polgar both won seats. It wasn’t long before lawyers’ phones started ringing.
With the Fake Sam Sloan disparaging USCF officials and board members on Internet message boards and the real Sam Sloan suing, the chess federation launched an investigation in the fall of 2007.
Based on IP addresses, a law firm hired by the USCF to track down the fake Sam Sloan concluded that Truong was the culprit. Truong, according to court files, will neither confirm nor deny the accusation.
The fight has spilled over to bankruptcy court in New York, where Truong filed for Chapter 7 relief in June 2007, shortly after being hired by Texas Tech. But Truong in his bankruptcy petition says he was unemployed. Brian Lafferty, one of Truong’s critics in the chess world, made sure a copy of a Texas Tech pay stub ended up in the hands of the bankruptcy court.
Polgar also sneaks in cyberspace, her enemies say. The USCF alleges Polgar was privy to the Fake Sam Sloan investigation because she, with the help of a business associate in Seattle, hacked into the e-mail account of a board member who sat on the litigation committee. Besides reading e-mails sent by the board’s lawyer to litigation committee members, Polgar and her allies set up a blog and posted privileged attorney-client communications for the world to see, the USCF says.
It’s a baseless allegation, one of Polgar’s lawyers says.
“Not only is it not true, the plaintiffs know it’s not true,” says Whitney Leigh, who is based in San Francisco (Polgar also has counsel in Illinois and Texas). “This is entirely made up by four executive board members who are hoping to force her to spend so much on litigation she would be forced to leave the board.”
A FLOOD OF LAWSUITS
Sloan was first to the courthouse, suing Polgar, Truong, the USCF, Texas Tech, various USCF officials, even the United States — among other things, he wants the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee a new federation board election. He also says the brouhaha has cost him membership in his beloved Marshall Chess Club, which has expelled him. He says he’s been told confidentially that it’s all about politics, but he never discusses such matters at the club.
“I just play chess,” he says.
Next came Gordon Ray Parker, a Philadelphian considered an expert in chess opening strategies who began his federal lawsuit thusly: “It is a sad day for organized chess in the United States.”
In his lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, Parker alleges that Truong adopted his identity in Internet postings, posting obscene messages and crude allegations against USCF insiders, just as Truong allegedly did with Sloan.
But, Parker claims, Sloan was in on the deal, allowing his online identity to be stolen so that fake postings would generate sympathy among the USCF members and propel him to the chess federation board. A federal judge in December dismissed most of Parker's case, but kept alive three claims against Truong and Polgar.
The USCF sued Polgar in California state court last summer, alleging she and unnamed allies illegally hacked into computer accounts with the help of purloined passwords. In addition to intercepting e-mails between the federation’s lawyer and the board’s litigation committee, the USCF says Polgar and her allies hacked the federation president’s USCF account and impersonated him in bogus messages posted on a federation Web site.
Less than two months after the USCF sued her, Polgar fired back with a lawsuit against the federation and others filed in Texas. Polgar accuses the USCF of “jealous attacks” and alleges that the federation and board members conspired to destroy her because she’s a woman and a foreigner. She blames the USCF for unflattering stories posted on the Internet and published in The New York Times and Lubbock Avalanche Journal.
“The USCF has apparently become alarmed and irrationally concerned with Polgar’s success and her championing of chess among all people, especially young women," one of her attorneys wrote.
A judge has dismissed Polgar’s claims of negligence and infliction of emotional distress, but has otherwise allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
Then came the Springfield lawsuit, filed late last year by the federation after the USCF board last summer couldn’t convince federation delegates — there are more than 100 who represent the 50 states — that Truong should be ousted. The USCF is now asking a judge to throw him off the board.
Under federation bylaws, attempts to throw Truong off the board should have ended with the failed recall last summer, Leigh says. “Rogue executive directors” are now spending money the USCF doesn’t have to continue the legal fight, he says.
THE END GAME
Sloan thinks Polgar and her husband are trying to drive the USCF into financial ruin so they can take over the federation.
“What else would it be?” he says.
Polgar has offered to settle her suit against the USCF for $1 and an apology, and the federation might not be able to afford much more. The USCF’s tax returns show a hand-to-mouth organization that generates roughly $3 million a year in revenue and has spent more than it’s taken in for the last three years. Board members draw no pay. But it’s not about the money, Sloan says.
The USCF has names, lots of names. Since its inception in 1939 courtesy of a chess-loving lawyer who happened to live in Chicago and so filed incorporation papers in Illinois, the USCF has kept track of and ranked more than 600,000 players, Sloan says. It’s a who’s-who and who’s-best list that cannot be duplicated.
“The worst-case scenario is she wins the case and we have to pay the $25 million (she’s seeking),” Sloan says. “We still have the names. We’re still recognized as the official organization of chess in the United States.”
Back in Toledo, Berling is one of those names, his membership in the USCF less than a year old. As a lawyer and player of a game whose sanctioning body dictates handshakes before and after contests, he says he can’t understand it.
If all the litigants truly loved the game, Berling says, they would drop the lawsuits, fire the lawyers, resign from the board and declare peace. He doesn’t care who’s right.
“If they continue with this madness in the court system ... even the winner is going to be a loser," he sais. "The federation, if they win, then what? They still have to pay the attorneys.
"Polgar and Truong should say thanks for the good times and leave. Otherwise, they’re going to dig their heels in until everyone’s bankrupt. They’ll do incalculable damage to themselves and the federation, no matter who comes out on top.
“And the big loser will be the chess public.”
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jun 06, 2009 @ 11:30 PM
Chess can be as knockdown, drag-out as roller derby, pro wrestling or ultimate cage fighting. Just check the court files.
Lawsuits pending in Springfield are the latest in a legal brawl that spans the nation and pits some of the greatest minds in chess against each other. At stake, some say, is the very survival of the U.S. Chess Federation, which has set up a legal defense fund to pay for a half-dozen lawsuits in four states, including Illinois, the corporate home of America’s official governing body of chess.
In one corner sit Zsuzsa “Susan” Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, both members of the USCF executive board, who have sued the USCF.
In the other are fellow board members, who have sued back. In a pending Sangamon County lawsuit, the USCF and its board are asking a judge to remove Polgar and Truong from the board. Polgar and Truong, meanwhile, are trying to kick the case up to federal court in Springfield, claiming that some matters of law must be heard under federal law.
It wouldn’t be the first time a federal judge has waded into the jungle of litigation that is consuming big-time chess in the United States.
Besides Illinois, lawsuits have been filed in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Texas. Allegations include computer hacking, slander, libel, resume puffing, fraud, negligence, infliction of emotional distress, violation of federal RICO statutes and board members impersonating other board members in online discussion forums, which have included no shortage of taunts and name-calling. It is, essentially, a series of cyber-squabbles that have morphed into lawsuits.
The legal fights have, quite literally, taken the fun out of the game, says Mark Berling, a Toledo attorney who formed a chess team at his daughter’s elementary school last year. With 50 kids playing this year, it’s proven a promising endeavor. But Berling has decided against encouraging students to join the USCF.
“The last thing I wanted them to do was log on (to the USCF Web site) and have their parents find out about this kind of lunacy,” Berling said.
THE PLAYERS
Susan Polgar and her family are legends in the chess world. She didn’t return an e-mail or phone call from The State Journal-Register, nor did her husband. But Polgar doesn’t hold back in describing herself in court documents. When she sued the USCF in Texas last year, she devoted two full pages to her background.
Born in Hungary, Polgar won her first tournament at age 4. Ranked the world’s best female chess player at 15, she says she forced the World Chess Federation to drop the word “men’s” from a championship tournament after she qualified for matches never before open to women. And she isn’t considered the best player in her family. That honor goes to her younger sister, Judit, who once bested five opponents in simultaneous matches while playing blindfolded, and at 16 beat former world champion Boris Spassky, walking away with $110,000.
As children, Susan Polgar and her two sisters were home-schooled, with as many as eight hours a day devoted to chess and reported visits from such superstars as Bobby Fischer, whose mark of youngest-ever grandmaster was surpassed by Judit.
In 2007, Texas Tech University hired Polgar to coach its chess team, granting her an honorary doctorate and the privilege of speaking at commencement exercises. She is paid $127,500 a year.
Less is known about Polgar''s husband, Truong, although he was hired by Texas Tech along with his wife (he’s paid $76,500 a year).
When running for the USCF board in 2007, Truong in a written campaign statement said he had 20 years of experience in “senior management, marketing and PR.” But Troung’s critics say he boasts of academic degrees he never earned and jobs he never held.
“Following the 2007 Executive Board election, USCF discovered that Truong made numerous dishonest and misleading representations during his Executive Board campaign, including that he had earned a Ph.D. and MBA and that he had held multiple high-level marketing positions with billion-dollar companies,” the USCF says in the Sangamon County lawsuit that seeks his ouster. “All of those representations are false.”
Furthermore, the plaintiffs say, Truong and Polgar hid the fact that they were married until after they won election to the board.
“We don’t know exactly when she got married,” says Samuel Sloan, a former board member who once considered himself a friend of Polgar but has now sued her and Truong in New York.
A book publisher who studied math at the University of California at Berkeley, Sloan has experience in courtrooms. Acting as his own attorney, Sloan won a 9-0 ruling from the U.S.
Supreme Court in a suit he had brought against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sloan hasn’t been as successful in his legal battle against Polgar and Truong, which he also is handling without benefit of a lawyer. A judge has dismissed the lawsuit, and Sloan is now before an appeals court. Win or lose, Sloan’s case marked the beginning of legal wars that have consumed organized chess in the United States, and his accusations echo in Springfield and beyond.
THE FAKE SAM SLOAN
Sloan remembers the day easily.
It was June 25, 2005. Sloan was flying to Chicago to play a grudge match against a CPA he says had been stalking him on the Internet with baseless charges of pedophilia. It was a $1,000 purse.
When Sloan landed in Illinois, he discovered someone had posted a message in his name on an Internet chess message board while he was en route. To an outsider, the posting critical of sitting board members doesn’t sound too bad, especially considering that Sloan was running for the board. But there were more messages, at least 2,500 more, to be precise. And they weren’t all innocuous.
Some contained homophobic references to USCF officials. Others were laced with profanity. Sloan says some of his own postings were lifted from a section of the USCF’s Web site that is accessible only to a few and pasted in public forums where anyone could see them, and with only a word or two changed.
Making matters worse, the Fake Sam Sloan spawned imitators, Sloan alleges, as many as four at one time. Most didn’t last long, he says in his lawsuit, which of necessity includes some fairly tortured language as he describes the situation:
“The Real Fake Sam Sloan continued persistently for more than a solid year with no breaks, whereas the Fake Fake Sam Sloans would quit after a week or two,” Sloan writes.
Sloan, who won a special election to fill a vacancy on the USCF board in 2006, lost an election for a full four-year term in 2007, when Truong and Polgar both won seats. It wasn’t long before lawyers’ phones started ringing.
With the Fake Sam Sloan disparaging USCF officials and board members on Internet message boards and the real Sam Sloan suing, the chess federation launched an investigation in the fall of 2007.
Based on IP addresses, a law firm hired by the USCF to track down the fake Sam Sloan concluded that Truong was the culprit. Truong, according to court files, will neither confirm nor deny the accusation.
The fight has spilled over to bankruptcy court in New York, where Truong filed for Chapter 7 relief in June 2007, shortly after being hired by Texas Tech. But Truong in his bankruptcy petition says he was unemployed. Brian Lafferty, one of Truong’s critics in the chess world, made sure a copy of a Texas Tech pay stub ended up in the hands of the bankruptcy court.
Polgar also sneaks in cyberspace, her enemies say. The USCF alleges Polgar was privy to the Fake Sam Sloan investigation because she, with the help of a business associate in Seattle, hacked into the e-mail account of a board member who sat on the litigation committee. Besides reading e-mails sent by the board’s lawyer to litigation committee members, Polgar and her allies set up a blog and posted privileged attorney-client communications for the world to see, the USCF says.
It’s a baseless allegation, one of Polgar’s lawyers says.
“Not only is it not true, the plaintiffs know it’s not true,” says Whitney Leigh, who is based in San Francisco (Polgar also has counsel in Illinois and Texas). “This is entirely made up by four executive board members who are hoping to force her to spend so much on litigation she would be forced to leave the board.”
A FLOOD OF LAWSUITS
Sloan was first to the courthouse, suing Polgar, Truong, the USCF, Texas Tech, various USCF officials, even the United States — among other things, he wants the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee a new federation board election. He also says the brouhaha has cost him membership in his beloved Marshall Chess Club, which has expelled him. He says he’s been told confidentially that it’s all about politics, but he never discusses such matters at the club.
“I just play chess,” he says.
Next came Gordon Ray Parker, a Philadelphian considered an expert in chess opening strategies who began his federal lawsuit thusly: “It is a sad day for organized chess in the United States.”
In his lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, Parker alleges that Truong adopted his identity in Internet postings, posting obscene messages and crude allegations against USCF insiders, just as Truong allegedly did with Sloan.
But, Parker claims, Sloan was in on the deal, allowing his online identity to be stolen so that fake postings would generate sympathy among the USCF members and propel him to the chess federation board. A federal judge in December dismissed most of Parker's case, but kept alive three claims against Truong and Polgar.
The USCF sued Polgar in California state court last summer, alleging she and unnamed allies illegally hacked into computer accounts with the help of purloined passwords. In addition to intercepting e-mails between the federation’s lawyer and the board’s litigation committee, the USCF says Polgar and her allies hacked the federation president’s USCF account and impersonated him in bogus messages posted on a federation Web site.
Less than two months after the USCF sued her, Polgar fired back with a lawsuit against the federation and others filed in Texas. Polgar accuses the USCF of “jealous attacks” and alleges that the federation and board members conspired to destroy her because she’s a woman and a foreigner. She blames the USCF for unflattering stories posted on the Internet and published in The New York Times and Lubbock Avalanche Journal.
“The USCF has apparently become alarmed and irrationally concerned with Polgar’s success and her championing of chess among all people, especially young women," one of her attorneys wrote.
A judge has dismissed Polgar’s claims of negligence and infliction of emotional distress, but has otherwise allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
Then came the Springfield lawsuit, filed late last year by the federation after the USCF board last summer couldn’t convince federation delegates — there are more than 100 who represent the 50 states — that Truong should be ousted. The USCF is now asking a judge to throw him off the board.
Under federation bylaws, attempts to throw Truong off the board should have ended with the failed recall last summer, Leigh says. “Rogue executive directors” are now spending money the USCF doesn’t have to continue the legal fight, he says.
THE END GAME
Sloan thinks Polgar and her husband are trying to drive the USCF into financial ruin so they can take over the federation.
“What else would it be?” he says.
Polgar has offered to settle her suit against the USCF for $1 and an apology, and the federation might not be able to afford much more. The USCF’s tax returns show a hand-to-mouth organization that generates roughly $3 million a year in revenue and has spent more than it’s taken in for the last three years. Board members draw no pay. But it’s not about the money, Sloan says.
The USCF has names, lots of names. Since its inception in 1939 courtesy of a chess-loving lawyer who happened to live in Chicago and so filed incorporation papers in Illinois, the USCF has kept track of and ranked more than 600,000 players, Sloan says. It’s a who’s-who and who’s-best list that cannot be duplicated.
“The worst-case scenario is she wins the case and we have to pay the $25 million (she’s seeking),” Sloan says. “We still have the names. We’re still recognized as the official organization of chess in the United States.”
Back in Toledo, Berling is one of those names, his membership in the USCF less than a year old. As a lawyer and player of a game whose sanctioning body dictates handshakes before and after contests, he says he can’t understand it.
If all the litigants truly loved the game, Berling says, they would drop the lawsuits, fire the lawyers, resign from the board and declare peace. He doesn’t care who’s right.
“If they continue with this madness in the court system ... even the winner is going to be a loser," he sais. "The federation, if they win, then what? They still have to pay the attorneys.
"Polgar and Truong should say thanks for the good times and leave. Otherwise, they’re going to dig their heels in until everyone’s bankrupt. They’ll do incalculable damage to themselves and the federation, no matter who comes out on top.
“And the big loser will be the chess public.”
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Dirty Hidden Thruth
Here are some excerpts from my “State of Chess in America” article back in January 2004 (http://www.chesscafe.com/text/polgar19.pdf)
… the popularity of chess is growing by leaps and bounds in America, especially among young people. Research has shown many times how chess can help ordinary children do better in school. More and more movie stars, athletes, celebrities and politicians are coming out to support chess. So why hasn’t all this helped the growth of organized chess in this country and the United States Chess Federation?
Read more
… the popularity of chess is growing by leaps and bounds in America, especially among young people. Research has shown many times how chess can help ordinary children do better in school. More and more movie stars, athletes, celebrities and politicians are coming out to support chess. So why hasn’t all this helped the growth of organized chess in this country and the United States Chess Federation?
Read more
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Checkmate! Angry chess player throws rival out of the window
24 April, 2009, 10:45
www.russiatoday.com
The court in the Russian Republic of Udmurtia has sentenced to a man, who was so upset to lose a chess match that he threw his opponent out of the window, to six years in prison, Infox.ru reports.
The incident occurred in the Udmurtian city of Glazov in December 2008. 43-year-old Aleksey Valentikhin came to visit his erstwhile friend – a 60-year-old pensioner, who lived nearby.
The two were playing chess, and it appeared that the old man was more skilful at the game. After several losses in a row, Valentikhin completely lost his nerve and attacked his rival, throwing him out of the window.
The pensioner fell from the second floor breaking several bones and damaging his lungs. He later died in hospital. When Valentikhin realized what he’d done he contacted the police himself.
www.russiatoday.com
The court in the Russian Republic of Udmurtia has sentenced to a man, who was so upset to lose a chess match that he threw his opponent out of the window, to six years in prison, Infox.ru reports.
The incident occurred in the Udmurtian city of Glazov in December 2008. 43-year-old Aleksey Valentikhin came to visit his erstwhile friend – a 60-year-old pensioner, who lived nearby.
The two were playing chess, and it appeared that the old man was more skilful at the game. After several losses in a row, Valentikhin completely lost his nerve and attacked his rival, throwing him out of the window.
The pensioner fell from the second floor breaking several bones and damaging his lungs. He later died in hospital. When Valentikhin realized what he’d done he contacted the police himself.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Parker v. United States Chess Federation
On February 20, 2008, Gordon Roy Parker filed a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania against the United States Chess Federation and several of its board members, including William Goichberg, Paul Truong, Susan Polgar, and Joel Channing. Parker alleged that... read more
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Report to the USCF Membership Regarding Current Litigation
The USCF is currently involved in six lawsuits. I have listed them below in the order of filing:
Sloan vs. USCF, et al., 1:07-cv-08537-DC
(District Court for the Southern District of New York)
Parker vs USCF, et al., 2:08-cv-0089-JCJ
(District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania)
2:08-cv-00829-JCJ
USCF vs. Does 1-10, CGC-08-476777
(San Francisco Superior Court); after removal and amend-
ment the case was renamed as, USCF vs. Polgar,
Alexander & Does 1-10, 3:08-cv-05126-MHP (District
Court for the Northern District of California)
Polgar vs. USCF, et al., 5:08-cv-00169-C
(District Court for the Northern District of Texas)
CyberCafes vs. USCF
(Connecticut)
USCF vs. Polgar and Truong, 2008MR000751
(Circuit Court for the Seventh Judicial Circuit,
Sangamon County, Illinois)
“...These are challenging times for the USCF considering the time and resources needed to handle these various cases. In an attempt to help protect the USCF, the USCF Executive Board voted to establish the USCF Legal Defense Fund. Anyone wishing to make a contribution, please contact Susan Houston at the USCF Office by calling 931.787.1234 ext. 136 or by e-mail: shouston@uschess.org.”
Bill Hall
Executive Director, USCF
Sloan vs. USCF, et al., 1:07-cv-08537-DC
(District Court for the Southern District of New York)
Parker vs USCF, et al., 2:08-cv-0089-JCJ
(District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania)
2:08-cv-00829-JCJ
USCF vs. Does 1-10, CGC-08-476777
(San Francisco Superior Court); after removal and amend-
ment the case was renamed as, USCF vs. Polgar,
Alexander & Does 1-10, 3:08-cv-05126-MHP (District
Court for the Northern District of California)
Polgar vs. USCF, et al., 5:08-cv-00169-C
(District Court for the Northern District of Texas)
CyberCafes vs. USCF
(Connecticut)
USCF vs. Polgar and Truong, 2008MR000751
(Circuit Court for the Seventh Judicial Circuit,
Sangamon County, Illinois)
“...These are challenging times for the USCF considering the time and resources needed to handle these various cases. In an attempt to help protect the USCF, the USCF Executive Board voted to establish the USCF Legal Defense Fund. Anyone wishing to make a contribution, please contact Susan Houston at the USCF Office by calling 931.787.1234 ext. 136 or by e-mail: shouston@uschess.org.”
Bill Hall
Executive Director, USCF
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
From the USCF forum
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Chess Grandmaster presides over Peoria tournamentChess Grandmaster Susan Polgar will play 64 opponents simultaneously the evening of Friday, Feb. 13, to kick off a weekend of chess at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria.On Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 14-15, the Susan Polgar National Chess Championship for Boys and the Susan Polgar National Open Championship for Girls will be held at the same location. The weekend events will include prizes, trophies, teaching events and eligible high school players competing for college scholarships. “This is a great event for Peoria and is part of Peoria's commitment to youth education and chess,” said City Manager Carl Swenson. “We are excited to have Ms. Polgar as our guest.”Born in Hungary but now living in New York, Polgar is one of the strongest female players ever, having been Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 until 1999.
In 1986, she made history by being the first female player to qualify to compete in the Men's World Chess Championship.In her Peoria exhibition, Polgar will take on the 64 opponents simultaneously at 7:15 p.m. Feb. 13.Anybody can be one of her challengers. Be one of the first to register and pay a $30 fee the night of the event. Registration will continue until the start of play or until all the spots are filled.
Earlier in the day, Polgar will speak at a luncheon in the Development and Community Services Building (First floor, Point of View Room) on the Peoria Municipal Campus.
The two championship tournaments will run through Saturday and Sunday, culminating with an awards ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.The deadline to register online is 7 p.m. Feb. 13; phone registrations will be taken until 10 p.m. at 602-482-4867.
For more information, visit http://www.susanpolgar.com and http://www.chessemporium.com/tourney.php.
I find several odd things about this announcement:
1. She is holding the "Susan Polgar National Open Championship for Girls" in Peoria, Arizona, (a suburb of Phoenix) and not in Las Vegas where she has held it previously or in Lubbock, Texas.
2. The announcement says that she is "now living in New York", and not in Lubbock, Texas.
3. She is playing 64 opponents for $30 each. Seems like she is playing for the money, not to promote chess.
4. The announcement calls her only "one of the strongest female players ever". Usually, her announcements say that she is "The World Chess Champion".Are these just trivialities, or is she no longer employed by Texas Tech University? Does she still live in Lubbock?
Sam Sloan
Chess Grandmaster presides over Peoria tournamentChess Grandmaster Susan Polgar will play 64 opponents simultaneously the evening of Friday, Feb. 13, to kick off a weekend of chess at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria.On Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 14-15, the Susan Polgar National Chess Championship for Boys and the Susan Polgar National Open Championship for Girls will be held at the same location. The weekend events will include prizes, trophies, teaching events and eligible high school players competing for college scholarships. “This is a great event for Peoria and is part of Peoria's commitment to youth education and chess,” said City Manager Carl Swenson. “We are excited to have Ms. Polgar as our guest.”Born in Hungary but now living in New York, Polgar is one of the strongest female players ever, having been Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 until 1999.
In 1986, she made history by being the first female player to qualify to compete in the Men's World Chess Championship.In her Peoria exhibition, Polgar will take on the 64 opponents simultaneously at 7:15 p.m. Feb. 13.Anybody can be one of her challengers. Be one of the first to register and pay a $30 fee the night of the event. Registration will continue until the start of play or until all the spots are filled.
Earlier in the day, Polgar will speak at a luncheon in the Development and Community Services Building (First floor, Point of View Room) on the Peoria Municipal Campus.
The two championship tournaments will run through Saturday and Sunday, culminating with an awards ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.The deadline to register online is 7 p.m. Feb. 13; phone registrations will be taken until 10 p.m. at 602-482-4867.
For more information, visit http://www.susanpolgar.com and http://www.chessemporium.com/tourney.php.
I find several odd things about this announcement:
1. She is holding the "Susan Polgar National Open Championship for Girls" in Peoria, Arizona, (a suburb of Phoenix) and not in Las Vegas where she has held it previously or in Lubbock, Texas.
2. The announcement says that she is "now living in New York", and not in Lubbock, Texas.
3. She is playing 64 opponents for $30 each. Seems like she is playing for the money, not to promote chess.
4. The announcement calls her only "one of the strongest female players ever". Usually, her announcements say that she is "The World Chess Champion".Are these just trivialities, or is she no longer employed by Texas Tech University? Does she still live in Lubbock?
Sam Sloan
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Exposed: chess genius who lost his bank $1.8bn
Deutsche trader had taken home $40m annual bonuses
By Stephen Foley in New York
Saturday, 7 February 2009
During the boom of the Eighties, the last time greed was good and Wall Street ran wild, it was a game called Liar's Poker that captured the testosterone-fuelled risk-taking of the trading floor for the public's imagination. This time round, as we pick over the wreckage caused by the latest frenzy of greed, maybe it will be Blindfold Chess.
With more than 100 colleagues gathered round, Boaz Weinstein, a derivatives trading whiz at Deutsche Bank, sat with his back to a chess board and dictated moves in a "blindfold" game against a Russian colleague. Keeping the board in his head, and thinking many moves ahead, it took him two hours to crush his hapless opponent. It was 2005 and Mr Weinstein was already a legend on Wall Street; two years later he would be taking home annual bonuses of about $40m; today, he is out, leaving behind him a $1.8bn (£1.2bn) hole that has wiped out the profits and shredded the reputation of Germany's most powerful bank.
Mr Weinstein is brilliantly clever. But, it turns out, too clever by half. His rise and his fall follow the arc of Wall Street's boom and bust, and now the 35-year-old gambler has been unmasked as the latest face of the finance industry's excess. He used to boast that he was using simple maths to make giant profits. "It's not rocket surgery," he would joke to friends, but the dazzling complexity of the bets he was making finally overwhelmed him.
Born to Israeli and Polish émigré parents, Mr Weinstein has always had the instincts of a game player, a gambler and a trader. His parents enrolled him in chess workshops at the age of five, and he was a chess master by 16. He excelled, too, at poker. And at university, he was fascinated by blackjack and used his card-counting abilities to dominate any game. At Deutsche Bank he surrounded himself with similar people, including alumni of MIT's secret card-counting blackjack team, whose exploits were the basis for the Kevin Spacey film 21 last year. The Deutsche team was called Saba, the Hebrew word meaning grandfatherly wisdom. They would gather after market close on Fridays to play poker, with $100 as the minimum buy-in. Team-bonding trips to Las Vegas were common, where members would often win big.
In their work, though, they were gambling with other people's money. Deutsche Bank posted its first annual loss in five decades this week, and promised it would never again put so much of its shareholders' funds at risk. When times were good, it was Mr Weinstein's team of ace traders who were bringing in a large chunk of the profits, and taking home tens of millions in bonuses.
He had almost single-handedly turned it into a powerhouse in the trading of complex new derivatives called credit default swaps. These instruments allowed traders to bet on the creditworthiness of individual companies, but their value has been questioned by economists, who think the market became little more than a casino, a casino with $60trn of bets outstanding at its peak last year. The enterprise collapsed in September when one of the biggest gamblers, Lehman Brothers, went bust, and Mr Weinstein's charmed position began to decay. Losses spiralled to $1.8bn, wiping out two years of notional gains.
Deutsche Bank yesterday refused to comment on the fall of Mr Weinstein, beyond confirming that he was no longer with the company. He had not been fired, though; rather he left because the company would no longer hand him the cash to gamble in the credit markets. Across Wall Street, the heady days of so-called "proprietary trading", when banks set up giant trading desks that mimicked the risk-taking of hedge funds, are over. It was a strategy that took many banks to the brink of bankruptcy, and tipped some of them over the edge.
Josef Ackermann, the Deutsche Bank chairman, said the firm is scaling back its own trading business, and cutting the amount of borrowed money it puts at risk in the markets. As for Mr Weinstein, he plans to set up his own hedge fund, and is now soliciting cash from potential investors. Deutsche Bank may no longer be willing or able to gamble; the 35-year-old chess whiz believes there will always be plenty of people who are.
By Stephen Foley in New York
Saturday, 7 February 2009
During the boom of the Eighties, the last time greed was good and Wall Street ran wild, it was a game called Liar's Poker that captured the testosterone-fuelled risk-taking of the trading floor for the public's imagination. This time round, as we pick over the wreckage caused by the latest frenzy of greed, maybe it will be Blindfold Chess.
With more than 100 colleagues gathered round, Boaz Weinstein, a derivatives trading whiz at Deutsche Bank, sat with his back to a chess board and dictated moves in a "blindfold" game against a Russian colleague. Keeping the board in his head, and thinking many moves ahead, it took him two hours to crush his hapless opponent. It was 2005 and Mr Weinstein was already a legend on Wall Street; two years later he would be taking home annual bonuses of about $40m; today, he is out, leaving behind him a $1.8bn (£1.2bn) hole that has wiped out the profits and shredded the reputation of Germany's most powerful bank.
Mr Weinstein is brilliantly clever. But, it turns out, too clever by half. His rise and his fall follow the arc of Wall Street's boom and bust, and now the 35-year-old gambler has been unmasked as the latest face of the finance industry's excess. He used to boast that he was using simple maths to make giant profits. "It's not rocket surgery," he would joke to friends, but the dazzling complexity of the bets he was making finally overwhelmed him.
Born to Israeli and Polish émigré parents, Mr Weinstein has always had the instincts of a game player, a gambler and a trader. His parents enrolled him in chess workshops at the age of five, and he was a chess master by 16. He excelled, too, at poker. And at university, he was fascinated by blackjack and used his card-counting abilities to dominate any game. At Deutsche Bank he surrounded himself with similar people, including alumni of MIT's secret card-counting blackjack team, whose exploits were the basis for the Kevin Spacey film 21 last year. The Deutsche team was called Saba, the Hebrew word meaning grandfatherly wisdom. They would gather after market close on Fridays to play poker, with $100 as the minimum buy-in. Team-bonding trips to Las Vegas were common, where members would often win big.
In their work, though, they were gambling with other people's money. Deutsche Bank posted its first annual loss in five decades this week, and promised it would never again put so much of its shareholders' funds at risk. When times were good, it was Mr Weinstein's team of ace traders who were bringing in a large chunk of the profits, and taking home tens of millions in bonuses.
He had almost single-handedly turned it into a powerhouse in the trading of complex new derivatives called credit default swaps. These instruments allowed traders to bet on the creditworthiness of individual companies, but their value has been questioned by economists, who think the market became little more than a casino, a casino with $60trn of bets outstanding at its peak last year. The enterprise collapsed in September when one of the biggest gamblers, Lehman Brothers, went bust, and Mr Weinstein's charmed position began to decay. Losses spiralled to $1.8bn, wiping out two years of notional gains.
Deutsche Bank yesterday refused to comment on the fall of Mr Weinstein, beyond confirming that he was no longer with the company. He had not been fired, though; rather he left because the company would no longer hand him the cash to gamble in the credit markets. Across Wall Street, the heady days of so-called "proprietary trading", when banks set up giant trading desks that mimicked the risk-taking of hedge funds, are over. It was a strategy that took many banks to the brink of bankruptcy, and tipped some of them over the edge.
Josef Ackermann, the Deutsche Bank chairman, said the firm is scaling back its own trading business, and cutting the amount of borrowed money it puts at risk in the markets. As for Mr Weinstein, he plans to set up his own hedge fund, and is now soliciting cash from potential investors. Deutsche Bank may no longer be willing or able to gamble; the 35-year-old chess whiz believes there will always be plenty of people who are.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Police: Man killed friend with sword after chess game in Alameda
By Sean Maher
Bay Area News Group
Posted: 02/04/2009 10:46:48 AM PST
An evening that started with two friends playing chess and drinking beers ended with one man stabbed to death and another booked on murder charges Tuesday, Alameda police said.
Kelly Scott Kjersem, a 40-year-old Alameda man, arrived earlier in the evening at 1220 Park Avenue with a 12-pack of beer, police Lt. Bill Scott said.
Kjersem was visiting the home of his friend, Joseph W. Groom, 62, to drink and play chess. The two men played and drank for some time, and later a female friend of Groom's arrived and began cooking dinner for the two men.
While she was in the kitchen, she heard an argument break out between the two men, Scott said. She didn't know what it was about, but found the two men had started wrestling.
Groom stopped and retreated to his bedroom, Scott said. When he returned, he was brandishing a sword more than 2 feet long. Police said the sword was made in Pakistan.
Groom stabbed Kjersem once, and the woman fled the apartment to call for help, Scott said.
When police arrived shortly afterwards, around 9 p.m., they found Kjersem dead and Groom sitting next to him, with the sword to his side.
Groom admitted the killing almost immediately, but couldn't explain it, Scott said.
"He said he'd stabbed the guy but he didn't know why," Scott said. "All of them were drinking, though. We took him to a hospital and got a blood sample, and we're waiting on results for that."
Neither man had a criminal record of any significance, Scott said.
The killing was Alameda's second reported homicide for the year.
Groom was arrested on suspicion of murder and is presently in custody at Alameda Jail, being held until his first court hearing.
Bay Area News Group
Posted: 02/04/2009 10:46:48 AM PST
An evening that started with two friends playing chess and drinking beers ended with one man stabbed to death and another booked on murder charges Tuesday, Alameda police said.
Kelly Scott Kjersem, a 40-year-old Alameda man, arrived earlier in the evening at 1220 Park Avenue with a 12-pack of beer, police Lt. Bill Scott said.
Kjersem was visiting the home of his friend, Joseph W. Groom, 62, to drink and play chess. The two men played and drank for some time, and later a female friend of Groom's arrived and began cooking dinner for the two men.
While she was in the kitchen, she heard an argument break out between the two men, Scott said. She didn't know what it was about, but found the two men had started wrestling.
Groom stopped and retreated to his bedroom, Scott said. When he returned, he was brandishing a sword more than 2 feet long. Police said the sword was made in Pakistan.
Groom stabbed Kjersem once, and the woman fled the apartment to call for help, Scott said.
When police arrived shortly afterwards, around 9 p.m., they found Kjersem dead and Groom sitting next to him, with the sword to his side.
Groom admitted the killing almost immediately, but couldn't explain it, Scott said.
"He said he'd stabbed the guy but he didn't know why," Scott said. "All of them were drinking, though. We took him to a hospital and got a blood sample, and we're waiting on results for that."
Neither man had a criminal record of any significance, Scott said.
The killing was Alameda's second reported homicide for the year.
Groom was arrested on suspicion of murder and is presently in custody at Alameda Jail, being held until his first court hearing.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Assault claims at chess game
By Bassam Za'za', Senior ReporterPublished: January 25, 2009, 23:25
Dubai: A chess game ended dramatically when a victim accused three men of attempting to forcibly sodomise him and threatening to kill him if he reported the matter to the police.
One of the three suspects, Iranian national M.Q., claimed before the Dubai Court of First Instance that a heated argument erupted during the chess game then evolved to a fight, after the alleged victim claimed that he was "a brilliant karate player." "He stood up and said to me harshly that he could beat me because he's good in karate and I got irritated and beat him up," said M.Q.
"Following the incident, the Asian victim accused the other two suspects and myself of attempting to have sex with him against his will. He lodged a malicious complaint and claimed that we threatened to kill him if he reported the matter to the police, that we tried to have a homosexual affair with him," argued M.Q. when he defended himself before Presiding Judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm. The Public Prosecution charged M.Q., his compatriot L.M. and Emirati M.G. with attempting to have a homosexual affair with the alleged victim, identified as N., against his will. They were also charged with assaulting and threatening to kill N.
Presiding Judge Bin Sarm will hear the charges against the Emirati suspect and also appoint lawyers to defend the Iranian suspects when the hearing reconvenes next month.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Chess murder trial pushed back
The trial for David Edward Christian, accused of second-degree murder in the death of his neighbor while they were playing chess, was granted a continuance Thursday.
Attorney Peter Persaud, who is representing Christian, said Christian has decided to waive his right to a speedy trial and Judge Larry Conmey signed the continuance order Thursday morning during the pretrial conference. Christian entered a written plea of not guilty in early November. A trial date has not been set, Persaud said.
Second-degree murder is a class B felony, punishable by 50 years in prison.
Attorney Peter Persaud, who is representing Christian, said Christian has decided to waive his right to a speedy trial and Judge Larry Conmey signed the continuance order Thursday morning during the pretrial conference. Christian entered a written plea of not guilty in early November. A trial date has not been set, Persaud said.
Second-degree murder is a class B felony, punishable by 50 years in prison.
Depto finds double-edged outlet in unique sport of Chessboxing
Wheeling park graduate David depto was always in search of something that challenged him as much physically as it did mentally. He found it in a relatively obscure sport known as Chessboxing.
By JIM ELLIOTT
W.Va. Sports Editor
Ohio County native David Depto grew up like a lot of other kids, playing football and basketball. He dabbled in wrestling, too, but it didn't take long for folks to realize Depto wasn't your average Little Leaguer.
When he wasn't working on his curveball, he was staring down Will Hunting in math competitions. No, this wasn't 2+2, it was they-say-you'll-need-this-later-in-life-but-it's-impossible-to-see-how mathematics. And it wasn't always within the school or even the county level.
This math counted.
What's more, at a time when most kids are still learning how to read and write, Depto was learning how to play chess as a first grader as part of the gifted program at Middle Creek Elementary.
''He has a strong background in academics,'' says David's father, Al Depto. ''I don't know how many trophies and plaques and certificates he has for that, but he always did well.''
David was seemingly always ahead of the game. The math came so easy, it became as much a detriment as it was a benefit. Sure schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were calling, but David always felt like people were quick to characterize him based solely on his academic prowess.
There was much more to him than that.
He thought he'd proved them wrong on the football field, the baseball diamond, the wrestling mat, or, at the very least, the canvas after he'd been introduced to boxing.
Al Depto still remembers taking his pre-teen son to his first boxing event, which happened to be the OV Toughman Championships at the Wheeling Civic Center.
Al was indifferent; David couldn't have been more interested if Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were out there.
''Enthralled. Glued. Hooked. Drugged,'' were the words David's dad used to describe his son's reactions that night. ''We sat there all evening, watched every bout.''
First chance he got after he'd turned 18, David, who read books about boxing and picked the brains of those in the know, entered the Toughman Contest. By the time he'd used all the amateur status he could on it, Depto was a twice known as ''The Toughest Man In The Ohio Valley.''
Boxing is a thinking man's game, not unlike ... chess.
It's rare that a feature on ESPN's SportsCenter is life-changing, but it was for David the day the Bristol crew introduced the world to chess boxing, a hybrid sport created in 2003 that combines boxing and chess in alternating rounds.
''It seemed like it was right up my alley,'' said David, who pursued it so strongly, today he's the No. 1-rated chessboxing contender in the United States.
''There is a lot of similarity,'' David said. ''Boxing is a chess match. You're always trying to set them up. The toughest part is coming out of the ring and trying to figure out what was the next move you were planning to make on the chess board. You always plan four or five moves ahead.''
Participants must be sanctioned boxers and rated chess players. Evander Holyfield just can't show up, push around a few pawns and rooks, and then knock someone out in 10 seconds when the bell rings.
David was supposed to participate in a world championship bout next month in Germany, but that's been postponed for the moment.
So was his reputation as all brains, no brawn. If they were going to call him an intellect, they were going to have to add ''with a killer right cross'' at the end.
David had always seen himself that way. This outlet just helped him show everyone else.
''He looked at (scholastic contests) as a sporting event,'' his dad says, an indication David had found parallels between academics and athletics from an early age. ''He looked at a math event as a sporting event and took it in that context. There was competition; there were guys that he looked at as competitors.''
That's why he passed on MIT and chose the University of Michigan after graduating from Wheeling Park High School in 1995. The way he saw it, the engineering program in Ann Arbor wasn't bad, either. (David's sister, Jill, didn't mind the idea that MIT had noticed her. She went there and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering).
It was there that David, the captain of Michigan's club boxing team, met a future Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Tom Brady walked in looking for a sparring partner one day as David was packing his gear. Depto took Brady up on his offer, first taking it easy on the QB. But Brady, who spent some time in a ring as a youth, asked Depto to ramp things up. He wanted a challenge, a workout. By the time they were finished, so was Brady's boxing career. He told Depto he was done. Forever.
After college, Depto moved to San Francisco in search of a place to take advantage of his degree in engineering. Even in a world where Tuberculosis still exists and Depto was part of a team that was developing better ways to combat it, he's never really been able to find a job that keeps him completely interested.
He's always in search of his next thrill. If he wasn't skydiving, he was spelunking, or scuba diving, and partially climbing Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps.
''Everything is maxed,'' Al said. ''He has to go higher, faster, harder to get a lot.''
That's had its ups and downs.
''We called him Redline David,'' his dad recalled at one time when David leapt first, then looked later.
That was when David was 19 and turned a motorcycle into an accordion after smashing it into a pine tree. Bike went left, David went right, his backbone both directions.
Whether he'd ever walk again, much less, ride, jump, climb, or tackle, became a question. His parents were in Florida when they got that news.
''We got the call at 3 in the morning, drove through the night,'' Al said. ''As soon as we arrived, hospital personnel said we're getting some feeling in his feet.
''I can't express to you the up-and-down feelings. You can imagine your young, active, strong son that has his whole life in front of him with all these plans and going through that.''
He pulled through and packed more experience in the 12 years since than most people do in a lifetime.
Al never knows what the next call will entail. And he's having just as much fun anticipating it as David is doing it.
This was his thought as he watched live as his son participated in this unique sport halfway around globe.
''I think the adventures that I gave David when he was young, he's paying me back,'' Al said.
By JIM ELLIOTT
W.Va. Sports Editor
Ohio County native David Depto grew up like a lot of other kids, playing football and basketball. He dabbled in wrestling, too, but it didn't take long for folks to realize Depto wasn't your average Little Leaguer.
When he wasn't working on his curveball, he was staring down Will Hunting in math competitions. No, this wasn't 2+2, it was they-say-you'll-need-this-later-in-life-but-it's-impossible-to-see-how mathematics. And it wasn't always within the school or even the county level.
This math counted.
What's more, at a time when most kids are still learning how to read and write, Depto was learning how to play chess as a first grader as part of the gifted program at Middle Creek Elementary.
''He has a strong background in academics,'' says David's father, Al Depto. ''I don't know how many trophies and plaques and certificates he has for that, but he always did well.''
David was seemingly always ahead of the game. The math came so easy, it became as much a detriment as it was a benefit. Sure schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were calling, but David always felt like people were quick to characterize him based solely on his academic prowess.
There was much more to him than that.
He thought he'd proved them wrong on the football field, the baseball diamond, the wrestling mat, or, at the very least, the canvas after he'd been introduced to boxing.
Al Depto still remembers taking his pre-teen son to his first boxing event, which happened to be the OV Toughman Championships at the Wheeling Civic Center.
Al was indifferent; David couldn't have been more interested if Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were out there.
''Enthralled. Glued. Hooked. Drugged,'' were the words David's dad used to describe his son's reactions that night. ''We sat there all evening, watched every bout.''
First chance he got after he'd turned 18, David, who read books about boxing and picked the brains of those in the know, entered the Toughman Contest. By the time he'd used all the amateur status he could on it, Depto was a twice known as ''The Toughest Man In The Ohio Valley.''
Boxing is a thinking man's game, not unlike ... chess.
It's rare that a feature on ESPN's SportsCenter is life-changing, but it was for David the day the Bristol crew introduced the world to chess boxing, a hybrid sport created in 2003 that combines boxing and chess in alternating rounds.
''It seemed like it was right up my alley,'' said David, who pursued it so strongly, today he's the No. 1-rated chessboxing contender in the United States.
''There is a lot of similarity,'' David said. ''Boxing is a chess match. You're always trying to set them up. The toughest part is coming out of the ring and trying to figure out what was the next move you were planning to make on the chess board. You always plan four or five moves ahead.''
Participants must be sanctioned boxers and rated chess players. Evander Holyfield just can't show up, push around a few pawns and rooks, and then knock someone out in 10 seconds when the bell rings.
Dave Depto, left, stands with his father Al after a chessboxing match. A hybrid sport that combines the game of chess and boxing, chessboxing is known as a biathlon for brain and brawn.
David was supposed to participate in a world championship bout next month in Germany, but that's been postponed for the moment.
So was his reputation as all brains, no brawn. If they were going to call him an intellect, they were going to have to add ''with a killer right cross'' at the end.
David had always seen himself that way. This outlet just helped him show everyone else.
''He looked at (scholastic contests) as a sporting event,'' his dad says, an indication David had found parallels between academics and athletics from an early age. ''He looked at a math event as a sporting event and took it in that context. There was competition; there were guys that he looked at as competitors.''
That's why he passed on MIT and chose the University of Michigan after graduating from Wheeling Park High School in 1995. The way he saw it, the engineering program in Ann Arbor wasn't bad, either. (David's sister, Jill, didn't mind the idea that MIT had noticed her. She went there and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering).
It was there that David, the captain of Michigan's club boxing team, met a future Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Tom Brady walked in looking for a sparring partner one day as David was packing his gear. Depto took Brady up on his offer, first taking it easy on the QB. But Brady, who spent some time in a ring as a youth, asked Depto to ramp things up. He wanted a challenge, a workout. By the time they were finished, so was Brady's boxing career. He told Depto he was done. Forever.
After college, Depto moved to San Francisco in search of a place to take advantage of his degree in engineering. Even in a world where Tuberculosis still exists and Depto was part of a team that was developing better ways to combat it, he's never really been able to find a job that keeps him completely interested.
He's always in search of his next thrill. If he wasn't skydiving, he was spelunking, or scuba diving, and partially climbing Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps.
''Everything is maxed,'' Al said. ''He has to go higher, faster, harder to get a lot.''
That's had its ups and downs.
''We called him Redline David,'' his dad recalled at one time when David leapt first, then looked later.
That was when David was 19 and turned a motorcycle into an accordion after smashing it into a pine tree. Bike went left, David went right, his backbone both directions.
Whether he'd ever walk again, much less, ride, jump, climb, or tackle, became a question. His parents were in Florida when they got that news.
''We got the call at 3 in the morning, drove through the night,'' Al said. ''As soon as we arrived, hospital personnel said we're getting some feeling in his feet.
''I can't express to you the up-and-down feelings. You can imagine your young, active, strong son that has his whole life in front of him with all these plans and going through that.''
He pulled through and packed more experience in the 12 years since than most people do in a lifetime.
Al never knows what the next call will entail. And he's having just as much fun anticipating it as David is doing it.
This was his thought as he watched live as his son participated in this unique sport halfway around globe.
''I think the adventures that I gave David when he was young, he's paying me back,'' Al said.
Friday, January 9, 2009
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