Russian President awarded the FIDE President with an order
Monday, 21 March 2011 10:32
President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree “Award of the order “Merit for the Fatherland” IV degree to K.N.
Ilyumzhinov” (Moscow, Kremlin, 17 March 2011, N 318). Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been given this prestigious award for his continued diligent work in his capacity as the FIDE President.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Well earned honor.
Dear Board Members and Executive Director,
All the children in our family will no longer participate in the 2011 Junior Grand Prix. We didn’t register for this event and it is clear from your inaction that you do not have the best interests of the children at heart. This letter means USCF no longer has the permission of our family to list the names of our minor children on any Junior Grand Prix lists. Please remove their names and JGP numbers from your system.
The names of the children are:
XXXXXXXXXXX 14164178
XXXXXXXXXXX 14164184
XXXXXXXXXXX 14164190
XXXXXXXXXXX 14164204
There are three reasons for this withdrawal.
1) Through inaction, this board has chosen to associate itself with the new “invitation to cheat” rule. 12.3.3 Players who are repeating a grade in school may have a second year of eligibility in that
grade if they are still age eligible for that grade. You have chosen not to protect the other players in the tournaments from the beneficiaries of the invitation to cheat. That this rule also benefits certain members of the scholastic council cannot be ignored. It benefits the private/magnet schools at the cost to the public schools who do not hold back bright children for supposed curriculum differences.
2) This board has refused to take any action on cheating which occurred before the rule was changed thus protecting the cheaters. 14026082: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and his brother cheated. He was not held back for academic reasons. He won trophies two consecutive years as a first grader (2008, 2009) and defeated my kindergartner daughter Gia as a second time first grader in Atlanta. So a three year player was allowed to pretend to be a second year player. Do you understand the magnitude of difference at those ages. Under the rules existing at the time, he was ineligible to play. This is the textbook example of why this new rule cheats the opponents. Now you have codified the cheating.
3) Through inaction, this board denied XXXXXXXXXXX the winner of the 2010 Junior Grand Prix in SOCAL his rightful title as state champion and named the third place finisher as state champion. March Chess Life page 49.
Cheating in favor of the private/magnet schools speaks for itself.
Your Junior Grand Prix system is a mess. Your promises are worthless. Have the prizes for 2010 even gone out after this board promised they would? I have been asking about this for over three months without response.
Do you even have rules for the 2011 competition? The USCF website has said for a month, Note: The JGP rules for 2011 will use a different means of computing points. The updated rules document should be
available soon. We are nearly three months through 2011. Incompetence is too kind a word. The office ignored my legitimate inquiries for three months and according to an email I received last Friday you still don’t even have rules for this year’s competition.
Effective immediately, please withdraw my kids from the JGP. Other parents have a right to know how you are handling your their children’s affairs. When USCF cleans up its affairs, acts on the past cheating, and levels the playing field, we will return.
A few years ago, the New York Times was kind enough to print my letter when Dalton won the National High School Championship using the National Junior High School and National Elementary Champion on their high school roster cheating Stuyvesant High School out of the national championship. I wonder what they might do with this. This sounds like another Danny Almonte Little League scandal.
I really do not understand you people.
Richard Peterson