Q&A from Chess Fans
Jackson (Denver, CO): I read on the USCF website about the revocation of your USCF memberships. Is it true and why?
PT: It is true. The Executive Board’s action is deplorable. Instead of doing what is best for chess and the USCF, these people appear to put their personal and political interests first. They are doing everything they can to hide their misconduct from the USCF members and delegates, even if this costs jobs for USCF employees and perhaps even cause the collapse of the entire federation. They used Chess Life and Chess Life Online to spread false information to hide the truth. But the facts will come out eventually.
JS (Los Angeles, CA): I have read only the USCF side of the story. Could you please summarize the cause of these lawsuits?
PT: Our position is that the USCF Executive Board and the USCF Executive Director continuously violated the USCF bylaws. I believe they abused their authority and used USCF members’ money for their own political agenda. I believe the legal cost so far exceeds $1 million for both sides, not counting what the USCF insurance has paid separately on behalf of the USCF. These people claim that the USCF has no money to support scholastic chess, college chess, women’s chess, professional chess, or chess promotion, etc. But they have no problem spending over $600,000 of members’ money for their own political agenda. It is inconceivable that these people are doing this in the middle of the worst economy in decades, and where countless USCF members have lost their jobs. These people could not care less about the welfare of chess or the USCF. They tried to blame this on us, while this has been their pattern of conduct for years.
These individuals can try to hide the facts, but the truth will come out in court. We have received tremendous support from countless USCF members encouraging us to stand tall and fight against these corrupt chess politicians.
The USCF has to cut their operating schedule to a four-day work week. The position of USCF Scholastic Director and FIDE Director had to be cut because of a serious financial meltdown. We offered to drop the lawsuit against the USCF for $1. The Executive Board rejected the offer because if the lawsuit against the USCF is dropped, they can not longer hide behind our federation to conceal their misconduct.
It also appears that they are also hiding from USCF members that Susan’s lawsuit against the USCF and its board members is covered by the insurance company. Mr. Jeff Jones is representing the USCF, and individual members of the Executive Board. These same people spent over $500,000 of members’ money to file frivolous lawsuits and to defend the misconduct of their political supporters from the lawsuit. They simply conveniently forgot to tell the USCF members this.
Chess Mom (Detroit, MI): Is it legal for the Executive Board to revoke your USCF Life Memberships and Executive Board status?
PT: We don’t think so. But it is up to the court to decide. But we do believe their actions directly violated the USCF bylaws.
Albert (Henderson, NV): What is your future plan with chess?
SP: We will continue to promote chess in multiple aspects. Nothing has changed. The SPICE Cup is the next big event on our calendar. You can follow our activities by checking out www.ChessDailyNews.com.
Jim (Des Moines, IA): Can you still compete in chess tournaments?
SP: No. The Executive Board revoked our USCF memberships. They claimed that we can still play. But there is no such thing as being able to play rated chess and not being a member. They are just making things up as they go along and this is clearly against the USCF rules. In addition, I cannot play in world championships or Olympiads unless I am a member of a national federation. So basically what the Executive Board did is to destroy what is left of my playing career.
RR: Paul, a few newspapers published some articles about problems with the chess federation. Can you explain? What does this mean? There are people out there writing things in papers and online that don’t do your good work justice.
PT: As the saying goes, you can either lead, follow, or get out of the way. We’re trying to lead, and they’re trying to make us get out of the way. Susan has worked very hard to get to where she is, and when you’re at the top of the game there will always be people who are jealous. The U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) is very political and extremely ineffective.
The bad PR we’ve received, yes, has been very unfortunate, and it came from people who want to see Susan and SPICE fail. It is a concerted effort on their part to try to stop our success. This is hurting our entire sport. Unfortunately, there is little we can do when people are not telling the truth. Things people claim are highly misleading and even slanderous. But, we’re doing good work, and it shows.
Source: http://www.chesscafe.com/polgar/polgar.htm
What the USCF did is completely illegal. The EB didn’t even bother reading the bylaws. EB members are elected by the voting members and only voting members are allowed to removed EB members. Goichberg, Hall, Berry, and Bauer are directly responsible for costing the USCF going under.
Please don’t give up your fight. You’re our only hope to get rid of all the crooks.
Susan,
You will always be a shining star!
The USCF EB simply falls into history’s garbage pail filled with petty tyrants and deranged personalities.
From what I understand, the whole group is imbalanced!
LB
I’m not taking sides, but I would love to see Susan continue her playing career. Love to see Susan and Judit in a big womens round robin with Koneru, Kosteniuk, Yifan Hou.
Will some sponsor step up and make this happen?
Sorry to hear about all this. What can you do, that’s what politicians are about. They don’t have what it takes to play chess, but they sure control things, don’t they?
Let’s just move chess online. Who needs the USCF? Or FIDE, for that matter. They are both corrupt political organizations.
I love ICC. It’s much more fun.
Of course, technology has its limitations (such as loss of connectivity).
However, the influence of OTB is almost zero for those of us who don’t care for OTB ratings.
The best thing to do is to support Susan’s fight against the incompetent leaders at the USCF. Bill Hall, Bill Goichberg, Jim Berry, and Randy Bauer are the masterminds behind the collapse of the USCF.
Goichberg have serious vested interest and being in the Executive Board alone is in conflict with him operating tournaments around the country.
Mike Atkins is also a major tournament organizer. Atkins worked for Goichberg for more than 10 years. Both of them have serious conflict of interest.
Goichberg and company grabbed millions of dollars from USCF members over the years through his company CCA. Now he’s making the near bankrupt USCF pay for the legal bills of his multimillion dollar company CCA. This man didn’t give a dime to chess even though he made millions. This is the same man who abused his power to provide his friends with “favors”. Goichberg was one of the 3 people involved in a bribery scheme last year while Berry and Bauer closed their eyes. Susan is the only one with the courage to expose the USCF corruption.
Does the USCF have any liability for failure to provide Susan and Paul equal protection under article IX of the USCF bylaws?
Isn’t there some way to settle all of this and move on? Isn’t mediation still going on?
I don’t think the USCF is serious about mediation. Hall, Lafferty and the gang still smear Polgar nearly everyday. How can you have mediation that way? I also don’t think Goichberg will ever apologize for his illegal conduct. I hope Polgar will go all the way and get rid of all of them thugs once in for all.
In settlements not everyone gets what they want, but they get what they can live with to move on. Caqn’t a settlement include a no further public comment clause to keep both sides quiet. What’s the real sticking point?
1. Lafferty
2. Lafferty
3. Lafferty