A number of chess fans asked the following question:
When a player play in the Chess Olympiad or World Chess Championship, does he/she represent the USCF or the United States?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
A very interesting question: USA or USCF?
nation, not federation. i think if we choose federation, we would lose sponsorships. also, think back to the cold war. ussr v. usa. the last issue of chess life did a whole thing about it. we never represented federation, but ….well maybe not nation but economic system. but its close enough.
Hi,
i’ve a FIDE-Rating, DWZ-Rating and an USCF-Rating.
But all i do is to play under german flag 😉
yk
What is the point of this question? Is this another way of saying, “Do we need the USCF?”
You represent a country, not a federation.
Definitely nation.
Of course country. Who would want to represent the USCF with Sam Sloan on the board?
It’s the United States Chess Federation. They represent the whole nation.
Ok first off, I would say when you play in an olympiad of any sort you represent your country, you represent the nation in its entirety, not just one organization. Second off, please stop with the bashing of people in general folks. I really would like for Susan to get someone to monitor this blog a bit more closely although I know she has better things to do than babysit. I would like to say I do not know Sam Sloan or anything about him really but the personalized bashing has got to come to an end. Please keep it relevant to the topic folks.
The player represents the country. However, in order to play in the event, one needs to be put forward by the USCF as the representative of USA. Obviously, this sort of simultaneously has the player also representing the USCF.
The USCF is the one and only official organization that FIDE will recognize as representing the USA in all fide chess events.
A world championship is a fide event and therefore a player needs to have some official uscf endorsement.
Please let us keep comments to a positive statements about how good Susan will be on the Executive Board. Let us stop all negative bashing of anyone else such as Sam. These constant negative comments are only going to hurt Susan. So if you want to see Susan do well, then please stop the negative comments about Sam.
In the Olympiad the player represents his/her country (or the country they recently moved to).
In the world chess championship play each player represents only himself.
G
>>Of course country. Who would want to represent the USCF with Sam Sloan on the board?>>
So a player represents the federation except when someone you don’t like is on the board, in which case he represents the nation. Well, that makes sense… (huh??).
Well, considering the USCF doesn’t even fund anyone going to the Olympiad anymore, I’d say USA… would’ve been my answer anyway actually.
When I played for Student Olympiad teams in 1976 (Caracas) and 1977 (Ciudad Mexico), I was representing the USA. I think I even exchanged flags with some players I befriended—at least I know I brought back some flags from Latin America. Getting to know Juan C. Fernandez of Cuba was a highlight, since we were together also at a tournament in Budapest in 1978, and thus kept up a running discussion of social and political issues for 3 years which gave me some added perspective in college.
Of course the USCF was responsible (e.g. expense-wise) and thanked for this! It also helps to learn a little of foreign languages—even just a few hours with vocabulary and an effort to slog through some front-page article in an (online) foreign newspaper can give you some insight and experience which shows you’re “paying your dues” and they’ll appreciate it!
ken regan
I remember you playing chess. Nice to hear from you. Hope all is going well. Not much has changed with Chess. It still does not allow one to make much of a living. I assume you have a regular job these days.
The 1970’s were some nice years for chess after Fischer ignited the chess world. Too bad the hopes and dreams of so many never materilized. I hope Susan will be able to make some things happen. She is wonderful for chess.
OK I posted the answer “Federation” on the USCF blog and I’ll defend it here too. By the way, I believe I was successful in defending the position over there.
(I hope someone is still reading this thread now that it’s way down the list already … that’s an issue I have with your blog Susan; the old topics die quickly before everyone gets around to contributing.)
This answer has NOTHING to do with the player’s patriotic feelings or intentions. But you were not asked what your feelings were when you were on a team. When USCF sends players to a FIDE event, USCF selects them, sends them, possibly pays them, and the US government or the nation as a whole is not consulted. If SPF (say) selects them on behalf of USCF, then the players would represent both SPF and USCF.
USCF has no legal monopoly on chess in the USA. What USCF has is the sole USA affiliation with FIDE and that’s a choice of USCF and FIDE that the US government doesn’t get involved in.
To represent the US government a player would have to have been selected with some government involvement. We’re painfully aware that there is no government involvement (or money) in the USCF. Unlike the old USSR teams, there is no US national team.
Certainly USCF players represent the USA when they visit abroad, because they are from our country. But so do chessplayers who independently travel and enter a foreign open tournament without USCF involvement, and so do tourists, businessmen, sports competitors, etc.