Prominent Trainer Retreats From Claim He Held Title
Michael Khodarkovsky is a prominent trainer and coach, and president of the Kasparov Chess Foundation. But is he, as he has claimed, an international master? No, according to the World Chess Federation, and now he is backing off the claim.
Khodarkovsky, who immigrated from Ukraine 15 years ago and lives in New Jersey, coaches at Montclair Kimberley Academy and the Spence School in Manhattan.
He is also on a committee of the federation that administers credentials for trainers and coaches, and he has been awarded the title of senior trainer, the highest designation.
The question of whether he is an international master is not academic; coaches and trainers are often hired based on their own chess skills as well as on how well their students do.
In a telephone interview on Jan. 9, Khodarkovsky said he had earned the international master title, a lifetime title awarded by the federation, based on two tournaments he played in Yugoslavia in 1989 and 1990. Khodarkovsky said he did not have the tournament results or other proof, but he said that after the second tournament, his rating was “exactly 2450.” An international master must, among other things, have a rating of at least 2400.
According to the federation’s Web site, the requirements for the title of senior trainer include having had “world/international successes” as a player and a rating of at least 2450 at one time.
The full explosive article can be read here.
If the President of the KCF lied about his chess credentials then he should either resign or be removed. There’s no excuse for this. The USCF should also remove Mr. K from all USCF coaching duties.
Mr. Khodarkovsky should definitely resign for the sake of the KCF.
Not only that but this guy is a FELON too…
Check it out!
http://www.mbktrial.com/
Definitely not academic and most serious in nature. You might remember the late Admiral Boorda who was caught wearing two medals he was not supposed to:
The nation’s top Navy officer, Admiral Jeremy Boorda, died by suicide on May 16, 1996, by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 56.
Admiral Boorda was the first enlisted sailor to become the Chief of Naval Operations, a position he obtained on April 23, 1994.
Admiral Boorda was distraught because someone claimed that he was not authorized to wear two valor medals.
The issue seemed to be trivial. But for Admiral Boorda, it was a serious matter. So serious, that shortly before he was to meet with the Washington bureau chief of Newsweek magazine, which was working on a story about the medals, he shot himself.
http://suicide.org/memorials/jeremy-boorda.html
Lets hope we don’t have a repeat…
Just to make the case straight.
the link that another anonymous provided :
http://www.mbktrial.com/ is about
Mikhail Khodarkovsky, the former CEO of Russian Oil company Yukos, who some believe to be a victim of political prosecution of Putin’s regime.
Mikhail Khodarkovsky who is chess coach, president of KFC and lives in NJ is a different person.
Mikhail Koganov
Did you see the Kasparov quote on that website ???
“The real crime here was murder, the cold-blooded assassination of the Russian justice system, perpetrated by the prosecutors by order of the godfather himself, Vladimir Putin.”
Garry Kasparov, Chairman of Committee 2008 Free Choice and co-chairman of the All-Russian Civil Congress
http://www.mbktrial.com/
A strange coincidence !!!
But both men are caught in lies?
Both associated with Kasparov at any rate.
If “IM” K sees the false id’s being disseminated to large audiences and does nothing to correct the information, how can he expect anyone to accept his lame explanations after someone else points out the mistake?
The more I learn about the chess world the more I think there is a very small sliver of dignity to it. I’m not just talking about the USCF. I’m talking about all over the world.
It seems there is rampant alcholism, womanizing, perversion, egotism, and dishonor. People are cheating, throwing temper tantrums, walking out on tournaments, back stabing each other, making false claims, and punching each other over barely legal women.
So many people appear to excel and chess, but totally fall apart when it comes to basic social skills. So few people know how to even live right.
I think back to that movie Searching For Bobby Fischer. I wonder how much difference there is between the upper echelon of chess, and those potzers in the park. I’m thinking very little.
Jerry,
Good points… you only need to look at the OFFICIAL BOBBY FISCHER WEBSITE to see that:
…”this is the ONLY authentic Bobby Fischer website and the ONLY Bobby Fischer website that Bobby himself recommends.”
http://home.att.ne.jp/moon/fischer/
Wow. I went to that website and thought I had navigated to 1992.
The Kasparov Chess Foundation should dismiss Mr. Khodarkovsky as President immediately. Otherwise, how can the KCF have any credibility?
The Unofficial Bobby Fischer Website is awesome – they ought to link directly to that!
I think everybody is so caught up in politics that facts are taken out of context.
First, Soviet system was different and title of IM did not exist in the Soviet Union. If you read the article to the end, you will see the reference to that fact.
Second, Michael is a coach and not a player. If you look at the performance of his students, it speaks for his coaching abilities. My daughter is one of his students and although she is still very young, during the time that she studied with him, she made a great progress. He is a wonderful coach, supportive and dedicated, and I can care less of his official title or discrepancy in the records.
I think people should stop digging out dirt and start thinking about chess, we’ll get better results then.
anonymous chessmom, doesn’t it concern you that your daughter’s coach LIED? He lied to everyone, including FIDE to get his senior trainer title. If he lied about this, what else would he lie about?
Mr. Khodarkovsky is using his title to bid for schools and pushed other qualified coaches out the doors. He was hired under false premise. He got paid good money under a false or made up title. He should do the honorable thing and resign. I doubt that he would do just that.
What Mr. Khodarkovsky did is unforgivable. He violated the trust of chess parents everywhere. Is that what you will teach your daughter? Do you teach her that it’s OK to lie if it benefits her? How sick!
Michael Khodarkovsky should be banned from teaching and all his positions with the USCF. He should also apologizes to all the people he scammed.
B
Michael never advertised to me or my daughter that he is the IM. I asked him to teach because I saw how his students performed.
Also, when you move from another side of the world, you have to find the equivalents for your old experience and accomplishments, it is not easy or straightforward in the different country with different rules. If you are born in US, it may be hard to understand…
chess mom, are you serious? He puts IM on the Kasparov Chess Foundation website. He uses the IM title to get his coaching positions. I’m glad you you’ll tell your daughter that it’s OK to lie and deceive people as long as you can make good money from it. Mr. Khodarkovsky hasn’t even apologized for his repeated lies. He should resign immediately as President from the Kasparov Chess Foundation. He lied and was busted by the NY Time journalist.
Just went to the link, it’s an ad
for Ben Finegold’s DVDs.
It says
“Ben Finegold, the highest rated American-born player in the U.S.”
I didn’t know that ! Is it really true ? I know Nakamura wasn’t born in the US, so it might be, but is there really no one else ?
What about Joel Benjamin?
Dream on Finegold:
GM Larry Chistiansen US 2663 FIDE 2572 was born in Riverside, California on June 27, 1956
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=15040
Yes, both Christiansen and Benjamin are rated higher than Finegold. Joel Benjamin US 2652 FIDE 2571 was born March 11, 1964 in New York, New York.
quote ” Just to make the case straight.
the link that another anonymous provided :
http://www.mbktrial.com/ is about
Mikhail Khodarkovsky, the former CEO of Russian Oil company Yukos, who some believe to be a victim of political prosecution of Putin’s regime.
Mikhail Khodarkovsky who is chess coach, president of KFC and lives in NJ is a different person.
Mikhail Koganov “
lolololol
roflmao
lolololol
lol 😀
This is really funny…
How on earth can you mistaken the chess coach with the billionaire oil
oligarch!!!
Sorry, I do not quite understand what this has to do with USCF.
Hi,
I just had a look at this incident and the comments here.
watchin_chess_fleas writes “what a waste of time…he had the points, he made the norms, he is an IM”.
But are you sure???
Please have a look at http://www.benoni.de/schach/elo/his.html?id=14100576
There you will find all Elo-Ratings of Michael Khodarkovsky since 1990.
It starts from 1992 (not 1990!!!) and is flat equal 2260.
Maybe there is an error in the database, but maybe he even lied about his rating???
By the way, missing data 1990-1992 implies a loss of 190 points within 2 years, quite remarkable for an IM who is 32-34 years old…
Best regards
Jürgen Feiler from Germany
I’m not excusing his conduct but I can completely understand the position of the mom whose daughter is one of his students. Most parents who are not chess players themselves (i.e. most parents) have no idea about the different titles, nor do they care as long as their kids are advancing and are happy. For example, a few weeks ago I spoke to a mom at a chess tournament whose son has two coaches, one an IM and one a fairly well known GM. The mom (who has several advanced degrees and a very impressive career) had no idea that there was a difference between IM and GM and that the GM was actually a more prestigious title. In our case, our son has been coached by several different coaches over the years and frankly, I think some of his lower rated coaches with no titles to their names have been better teachers than some of the IMs and GMs. In other words, to all coaches who are tempted to inflate their title or rating to get students, don’t bother. A. You might get outed in the New York Times chess column and B. Most chess parents don’t care whether you are an IM or GM. They just want to know that you are a good teacher.
First a disclamer, I do not know Mikhael Khodarkovsky personally, never even met and I do not have any personal interest in Kasparov Chess Foundation. Still, I am willing to cut the man some slack here.
In the NYT article he claims to hold title of master of USSR and is very proud of it. I have no way to confirm that is true, but if it is in fact true (NYT article doesn’t dispute that fact), this is quite an achievement. Getting master of USSR title back then was much harder than get an IM title now. In fact number of candidate masters from former USSR when they immigrated to US or Europe in 90’s progressed qiuckly and achived IM or GM titles.
Now, back to NYT article. It is not very clear to me whether Mr. Khodarkovsky actually claimed to be an IM or IM-strength player. He said he played in a tournament in Yugoslavia and was told by orginizers that he achieved a rating of 2450 (was it performance rating). NYT doesn’t dispute this fact. Reading between lines here, the journalist seem to have some hidden agenda here. I wonder what it is…
I have a personal not very positive experience with NYT when they published my picture with a misleading caption, which caused lots of confusion among my co-workers.
Also, at my best knowledge Mr. Khodarkovsky is not holding any USCF post or position, so requests for him to resign are misdirected.
His post at KCF is another matter, but should be left for KCF management to investigate and act upon.
I would really like to see another part of the story before jumping to any conclusion here.
Mikhail Koganov
Finegold was at one time the highest. And I think he was speaking of USCF rating, not FIDE.
Also you have to understand that Joel has raised his rating substantially within the last year. I believe its gone up over 50 points at least while Ben’s has dropped some.
If there is no news to report then you need to create the news. A good job of investigative reporting by the New York Times.
Lastly, about the highest rated player born in the USA, that is Robert J. Fischer. Finegold, Benjamin or Christiansen are Patzers compared to him – so it
is all academic or splitting hairs.
None of the people you mentioned are Patzers. I take great offense that you would say that of some of America’s greatest chess players ever. Besides, they have done more for chess and are substantially better souls than Bobby Fischer.
Besides all 3 are statistically better than Susan Polgar, so you might as well call her a Patzer while you’re at it.
Someone sent me an e-mail regarding this thread, which I had already read yesterday, although there are now many new posts.
At some point last year, I was the highest rated American born player on the USCF rating list. Nakamura was not born in the USA. Also, at that time, I was higher rated than Joel and Larry. Now, they are both much higher rated than I. Both have gained rating points in 2006 and I lost quite a few.
It seems unlikely I will ever be the highest rated USCF American born player again.
Most of the really strong players who are my age (Wolff, Rachels, Ilya Gurevich, Sherzer) have quit playing competitve chess. The only player my age who still plays is Fishbein, and even he plays rarely.
BPF
Those would be interesting matches. Fischer verses Polgar, Benjamin, Finegold or Christiansen.
I see that chess really became popular in the US. Otherwise how to explain that NYTimes publishes so long article on this matter?! I know Khodarkovsky personally as he is originally from Odessa. As I remember he indeed was a Soviet master before he emigrated.
Regarding his IM title I do not know any details, but the Soviet master title is in fact considered to be more prestigious by many (I never was a Soviet master by the way). Once I played against him: on the same year I shared the 2nd place in the Ukraine U-17 championship (ahead on tiebreak of Ivanchuk who is one year older than I) so I already could play some chess then, and was not ashamed to make a draw with Khodarkovsky at the same time. Already in Odessa Khodarkovsky was known as chess organizer and journalist. If someone tries to prove that he is not qualified to teach children chess, it is really a strange idea.
GM Mikhail Golubev
Odessa, Ukraine
Golubev,M – Khodarkovsky,M [B02]
Odessa, 1984
1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.Nc3 Nxc3 4.dxc3 d5 5.Bd3 c5 6.Be3 e6 7.Nf3 Be7 8.0-0 Nc6 9.c4 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Qxd1 11.Raxd1 0-0 12.Rd2 a6 13.Rfd1 b5 14.Bd3 Bb7 15.Be4 Rac8 16.Rd7 Rfd8 17.Bxc6 Bxc6 18.Rxd8+ Bxd8 19.Bxc5 Bd5 20.b4 a5 21.a3 axb4 22.axb4 Ra8 23.Nd4 Bc4 24.Nc6 Bg5 25.Na5 Bd5 26.g3 Bd8 27.Ra1 Bc7 28.f4 g5 29.Kf2 Kg7 30.Bd4 Kg6 31.Ke3 Bd8 32.Ra3 Be7 33.Bc5 Bd8 34.c4 bxc4 35.Nxc4 Rxa3+ 36.Nxa3 Kf5 37.b5 gxf4+ 38.gxf4 f6 39.exf6 Bxf6 40.Nc2 e5 41.Bd6 exf4+ 42.Bxf4 … (draw)
Inexcusble! Liars do not belong in the teaching field. Khodarkovsky should be ashamed of himself. I hope he’ll resign from the KCF and walk away or issue a big apology to all the people he fooled. But I doubt that will happen. He’ll do anything to destroy other teachers to take over their schools. It’s alwasy about him.
Well, someone’s rating history can be checked e.g. in the ChessBase Players Encyclopedia, it takes some 5 seconds inside ChessBase program…
Then I do not understand anything at all, sometimes I feel that some other people (like this NYTimes journalist) are living on the Moon, or may be it is I who live there?
It’s too bad that a coach has to lie about his title. The most stupid part is he LIED to FIDE officials to get his Senior FIDE Trainer certificate. How stupid can you be to lie to FIDE about his FIDE rating. He thought that FIDE ratings only show the last 5 years. Even after being caught of lying, he still showed his arrogant side through his comments. Go away! Just go away! We don’t need more unethical coaches. I’ll never allow my kids to play in any KCF event again until this liar resign from the KCF.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/polgar29.pdf
I’ve read Susan’s article from 2004 where she is saying that the help from KCF and the head coach Michael Khodarkovsky was crucial in winning a medal for US Women’s team at the 36th Chess Olympiad. For some reason, the article in NY times does not mention any of the accomplishments of Michael or KCF.
Yes, Ben Finegold was the top US rated player in five USCF bimonthly top rated lists: 8/2005, 10/2005, 12/2005, 2/2006, and 4/2006 so he could very well make the arguement that he held the title of highest rated US born chess player for a year. He was preceded by Joel Benjamin and succeeded by Larry Christiansen per the USCF tally:
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlRtgSupp.php?11264417
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlRtgSupp.php?10102511
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlRtgSupp.php?10460921
Play to win, and play fair!
Oops, my USCF Ratings History links for Ben Finegold, Joel Benjamin, and Larry Christiansen got chopped short so here they are again using Tiny URLs:
http://tinyurl.com/2upjjh
http://tinyurl.com/34de68
http://tinyurl.com/3bfs7g
What’s the big deal? Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on?
I donated my medal of honor to Paris Island in the name of every marine…the few the proud…the best of the best.
Khodarkovsky is wrong to lie about his made up IM titel. He should apologize immediately!
More on this here:
http://chessdad64.journalspace.com/?entryid=242
Yup, the guy was a fraud. Not any more.
“He said he played in a tournament in Yugoslavia and was told by orginizers that he achieved a rating of 2450 (was it performance rating).”
Another lie.