Bill Hall,
Could you please explain why I was never invited or asked to participate in the 1st World Mind Sports Games (Blitz and Rapid) in Beijing, China? I would have been happy to compete in all the possible events to try to bring home the titles for the United States.
I understand that I have to meet the USCF activity requirements for the Olympiad / US Championship. However, the regulation does not apply for an event like this.
Even if you believe that I may not accept the invitation, I would expect a courtesy inquiry. When I received the invitation to represent the U.S. in the Women’s World Chess Cup in Dresden, Germany (July 2006), I accepted and I won.
http://www.fide.com/component/content/a … orts-games
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8575/468/
The last time I played in a rapid event (which was the strongest RR Invitational rapid event in U.S. history – June 2006), I finished second 1/2 point behind Kamsky and ahead of Onischuk, Ibragimov, Gulko, and Stripunsky (http://main.uschess.org/component/optio … temid,181/).
As I stated above, I also won the Women’s World Chess (Rapid) Cup in Dresden, Germany without a single loss.
In addition, I won the last 3 US Open Blitz I played in, the latest one in (August) 2006, by a margin of 2 points. (http://main.uschess.org/component/optio … temid,181/)
I am enclosing the names and ratings of some of the top players in the U.S. for comparison.
Thanks.
Susan Polgar
(The USCF had more than 6 months to handle this invitation. On the bottom of this post is the original announcement by FIDE dated January 3, 2008!)
———————————————
Standard rating:
Susan Polgar 2597 (67 points difference)
1 Krush, Irina (12543137) NY USA 2530
2 Zatonskih, Anna (12873912) NY USA 2490
3 Goletiani, Rusudan (12807449) NY USA 2384
4 Baginskaite, Camilla (12716466) CA USA 2342
Blitz / Rapid (Women):
Susan Polgar 2621 (189 point difference!)
1 Zatonskih, Anna (12873912) NY USA 2432
2 Rohonyan, Katerine (12973020) MD USA 2322
3 Krush, Irina (12543137) NY USA 2285
4 Abrahamyan, Tatev (12851435) CA USA 2240
Overall Blitz / Rapid:
Susan Polgar 2621
1 Nakamura, Hikaru (12641216) NY USA 2698
2 Christiansen, Larry M (10460921) MA USA 2626
3 Sokolin, Leonid M (12541565) NJ USA 2615
4 Palatnik, Semion (12542096) MD USA 2604
———————————————-
Thursday, 03 January 2008
The 1st World Mind Sports Games will be held in Beijing, China from 3rd to 18th October, 2008. There will be 5 sports represented, Chess, Bridge, Draughts, Go and Chinese Chess. The Games will be under the aegis of GAISF and organised by the International Mind Sports Association of which FIDE is a founding member.
The 1st World Mind Sports Games will be held in Beijing, China from 3rd to 18th October, 2008. There will be 5 sports represented, Chess, Bridge, Draughts, Go and Chinese Chess. The Games will be under the aegis of GAISF and organised by the International Mind Sports Association of which FIDE is a founding member.
There will be competitions of Rapid and Blitz chess for individuals, pairs and teams. Altogether 10 gold medals will be available for chess plus a trophy for the leading federation over all chess disciplines. Thanks to generous sponsorship, free full board accommodation for participants will be available.
There is also the possibility of substantial help towards travel costs through the provision of air tickets from set points.The full schedule and details for federations to nominate entries will be circulated shortly.
Source: FIDE.com
This is clearly political. The USCF wants to chase you out. There’s no logical explanation for this.
The ED has become too political. He should either resign or be fired. The USCF has become a joke, an absolute joke.
Do you really care about a tournament like this?
The issue is not about the tournament in itself. The issue is the way how the USCF operates.
I should have the right to decide IF I want to play or not or which invitation I should or should not accept.
This should not be the decision of the ED, the USCF, or chess politicians.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
Nakamura, the country’s best blitz and quick player, was not on the US team either. Do they really want to have a real representation of our country or not? How were those representatives selected (no disrespect to the selected players intended)? Is it too late to change the teams?
The deadline was July 14. No changes can be made. It’s final. It’s sad. It’s time for the USCF to disolve.
What chutzpah the USCF has. Time to get rid of em.
Goichberg and his gang won’t vote to get rid of Bill Hall. He’s his guy. He’ll vote to extend his contract in August.
correction annon 10:39, the best blitz player in USA is not Nakamura is Jorge Sammour-Hasbun!
how many times do you want the guy to win Dos Hermanas to show you that he is the best?
I thought that two times was more than enough!
Susan, the guys just think you are too good for that party, for them you are too chess like to Konfu is the guy who taught Bruce Lee how to fight 🙂
To anon at 11:35:00 AM CDT,
According to Mark Ginsburg: “But as I understand it, the matches are not proctored.” If you could ONLY win in a remote place in a tiny den with an engine autoplay the moves, no body would think you are the strongest. Tell us if this guy had ever beaten Nakamura or other GMs OTB, then I think of him otherwise.
Maybe they thought it would be some level of conflict since you’re on the Executive Board. Or they felt that you had too many commitments.
I guess you had many opportunities to communicate, in a neutral and non-pushy way, that you were willing to represent the USA and that you had not retired from competitive chess.
Did you take any of them? You don’t say that you did.
Anon 3:35,
What you fail to see is the USCF’s failure to take advantage of the grand opportunity to ask GM Polgar to represent the USA. They know she has the Triple Crown in Blitz and they ignore her talents. It looks like the USCF is more interested in Status Quo than actually winning chess for the USA.
We need a new Chess league.
When I last re-joined the USCF I received invitations for (at least) two consecutive years for invitational events in my state. I did not accept the invitations. I have not been actively competing. The invitations no longer come my way — and (under the circumstances) I see no reason that I should continue being invited.
It seems reasonable to me that a player who has been inactive needn’t be invited to events for which they would otherwise qualify.
If you had stated in advance your willingness to compete, and had still not been invited, then you would have a far stronger argument.
As it is, based on what little I know (and all I know is what I read in this blog)this unfortunate situation may very easily be due to a misunderstanding concerning your willingness to compete.
annon 1:28 Jorge Sammour-Hasbun is now a IM and member of the Boston team he has beat many GMs OTB including Nakamura at the blitz championships held in New York, if you don’t know that the Boston Team beat the New York team in New York then you don’t know anything about chess, another member of the Boston team is Larry Christiasen
Mark Ginsburg is just a jelous ego maniac like most doctors are (that beside the fact that they can be very helpful and useful to society)
If the USCF and Susan Polgar failed to communicate effectively about this event, I find it difficult to blame only the USCF. This was a great opportunity for the USCF and Susan to work together – sadly, apparently, missed by at least one side.
Susan is on the Executive Board of the USCF, and presumably in a position to communicate privately and to good effect with the USCF. Is she maintaining that indicated her availability and was ignored? She doesn’t say either way.
Transparency is always a good thing. Who was appointed to select a team? What were the criteria? Were current activity levels, ‘team member’ credibility, rating credibility taken into account?
Susan’s nominal rating is impressive and it is clear that she is relatively strong at Rapid/Blitz compared to play at Classical timescales. But these are seriously historical ratings now. A pity there was not some sort of qualification event.
I was waiting for the invitation which I would have gladly accept. It never came.
I sent an email to Bill Hall asking if we are planning to send a delegation or not. Then I got the news that the players have been announced and I was not on the list.
Now I am told that I was left off by accident and it was not a political decision. It is not the proper procedure for any player to contact the USCF to lobby for an invitation.
After I asked the question, I was insulted by one of the board members and he also lied about my position instead of apologizing for the clear error by the USCF.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
I echo the sentiment of others. It’s time for the USCF to go. It’s beyong fixing. Bill Hall shouldn’t have his contract renewed.
This is typical of the USCF. They’re too political and have no idea what they’re doing.
What is an “official question?”
Is this an appropriate forum for it?
Why??
Moreover, if so, what is the “official answer?”
The official email was sent to USCF ED Bill Hall and the entire board. It is not a confidential issue.
It is appropriate for me to address it here because various people spread the rumors that I refused to play which is not true. I was not contacted at all.
Here are some of the things I was told:
The USCF found out about this event in January 2008. It was also posted on the FIDE website.
– Very little was done until June 10th when IM John Donaldson was asked to take over this task by Bill Hall. This is according to IM Donaldson.
– IM Donaldson had very little time or guidance as of who to invite. He also stated the following: “Since the event is blitz and rapid chess I find no precedent for the criteria for selecting the team.”
– Bill Hall stated the following: “Susan, I apologize that you feel that you were unfairly treated regarding this. I can assure you that there was no slight intended to you.”
– There is no further explanation.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
This smells like rotten politics by the USCF.
This was posted on the chessdiscussion forum by Susan:
Bill,
Thank you for your response. However, your response does not address my original question. In addition, IM John Donaldson clearly stated that he was asked to take over this task by you on June 10th. Why did the USCF wait so long before sending out invitations to players?
In addition, John said the following:
“With no previous Mind Sports Olympiad invitation criteria to go by, I stuck with something simple. I invited the top ten men and women on the July 2008 USCF rating list. This produced a few positive responses, but I ended up having to go to numbers 20-30 to eventually complete the teams.”
On the bottom of this email, John showed us the list of the top 10 players according to the July 2008 list. When he did not get enough response, he then went further down the list to number 30.
Could you please then explain the following:
Individual Men: Blitz and Rapid
Shabalov Alex, Akobian Varuzhan and Friedel Josh.
Individual Women: Blitz and Rapid
Krush Irina (only blitz), Shahade Jennifer, Abby Marshall (only Rapid) and Zenyuk Iryna.
Pair events: Irina Krush and David Pruess
Men’s team: Alex Shabalov, Eugene Perelshteyn, Josh Friedel Jesse Kraai and Dmitry Schneider
Women’s team: Iryna Zenyuk, Cindy Tsai ,Abby Marshall, Chouchanik Airapetian and Shirley Ben-Dak
This was posted on the USCF website. According to USCF’s own MSA, Jennifer Shahade last played in 2004 while my last event took place in 2006. Why is there a different standard for me? Why did one get an invitation and one did not?
We cannot have things work both ways. If I am not qualified because of the activity requirement then how come another player who also did not meet this requirement received the invitation and I did not? And if the activity requirement does not apply in a blitz and rapid event (since this is clearly not the Olympiad or US / US Women’s Championship) then why was I not invited?
You responded by saying: “Susan, I apologize that you feel that you were unfairly treated regarding this. I can assure you that there was no slight intended to you.” So if that is the case, how do you explain what happened?
Thank you.
Susan Polgar
In a message dated 7/25/2008 5:34:39 P.M. Central Daylight Time, bhall@uschess.org writes:
All,
John Donaldson is not at fault in any way for any perceived errors on this issue. John put a tremendous amount of effort into this project and deserves all of our appreciation. Susan, I apologize that you feel that you were unfairly treated regarding this. I can assure you that there was no slight intended to you.
Regards,
Bill Hall
Executive Director
United States Chess Federation
P.O. Box 3967
Crossville, TN 38557-3967
Phone: (931) 787-1234
Fax: (931) 787-1200
1 Kamsky, Gata (12528459) NY USA 2782
2 Nakamura, Hikaru (12641216) NY USA 2747
3 Onischuk, Alexander (12625186) VA USA 2725
4 Shabalov, Alexander (12544264) PA USA 2704
5 Ehlvest, Jaan (12514557) NY USA 2687
6 Seirawan, Yasser (10509459) WA USA 2685
7 Kaidanov, Gregory (12543746) KY USA 2682
8 Shulman, Yury (12741541) IL USA 2673
9 Christiansen, Larry M (10460921) MA USA 2670
10 Akobian, Varuzhan (12740522) CA USA 2666
11 Benjamin, Joel (10102511) NJ USA 2646
1 Krush, Irina (12543137) NY USA 2530
2 Zatonskih, Anna (12873912) NY USA 2490
3 Goletiani, Rusudan (12807449) NY USA 2384
4 Baginskaite, Camilla (12716466) CA USA 2342
5 Rohonyan, Katerine (12973020) MD USA 2322
6 Abrahamyan, Tatev (12851435) CA USA 2294
7 Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg (12925481) CA USA 2290
8 Melekhina, Alisa (12726115) PA USA 2286
9 Battsetseg, Tsagaan (12719650) MD USA 2251
10 Ross, Laura R (12630804) NY USA 2216
Zenyuk, Iryna (12846035) NY USA 2216
I curious to know how Shahade made the team when she last played 3.5 years ago.
The plot gets thicken! What’s the excuse for the USCF now that Shahade clearly didn’t meet the activity requirement either but got the invite. How come no other board member talk about this? They obviously didn’t want Susan to play for the US.
@ Susan
You may be right, and I wouldn’t deign to argue either side without more information, but introducing the element of a public (and often partisan) forum may not be the best way to find out.
“They obviously didn’t want Susan to play for the US.”
How can it be that the effort to combat spurious rumors is best served by encouraging the “conclusion” of what is essentially a rumor? Or, by decrying the supposed politicization of a selection process, by rendering it even more political?
Clearly it is not a confidential issue (in the legal sense), but it might have been kept confidential, in the sense of avoiding prejudicial “evidence.”
As it stands, de facto it is not a confidential issue primarily because it now exists on a very public forum. That makes any earnest investigation by an independent party both more difficult and less appealing.
Susan is very worthy to be included in the US team. I also wonder that why you are not included in the list of the team USA. The credential really shows that you can and you have already prove that before in many rapid and blitz games as what you have mention. Very doubtful reasons for the USCF to exclude you.
I applaud Susan’s willingness to make this a public issue. The USCF has long been doing things behind the scene. We need to know what the officials are doing. This is clearly the case of wrongdoing by the USCF. How can they fail to invite the #1 woman player in the US? As Susan said if they use the activity requirement then why is Jennifer Shahade invited? Something is fishy here. It’s also curious that Goichber has been real quiet about this. He’s probably trying to figure out another cover up.
Unfortunately, Susan, you do not meet the activity requirements, and these requirements apply to all national and international invitations.
http://www.uschess.org/tds/invitations.html
Since you are on the board, I am surprised that you did not know about these rules.
Really? So kindly explain how Jennifer Shahade got the invitation when she last played in 2004? So what criteria did the USCF use? This is exactly her question and it doesn’t seem that the USCF could give an answer.
“Unfortunately, Susan, you do not meet the activity requirements, and these requirements apply to all national and international invitations.”
How about Jen Shahade at 2138 which is 482 points lower than Susan in Blitz / Rapid and 2318 which is 279 points lower than Susan in standard.
I’m surprised you can’t understand numbers. Next excuse?
Total silence from the USCF. Total silence from Bill Goichberg. Total silence from Bill Hall. How interesting. How typical! At least have the chutzpah to admit that you don’t want Susan on the team for political reason.
Tweedle Dumb said…
“Really? So kindly explain how Jennifer Shahade got the invitation when she last played in 2004? So what criteria did the USCF use? This is exactly her question and it doesn’t seem that the USCF could give an answer.”
What almost undoubtedly happened is that Susan has turned down all invitations since 1996 so they just assumed that she would not be interested in playing. Jennifer Shahade rarely gets invited to anything so when the rest of the other women declined they turned to her,
“What almost undoubtedly happened is that Susan has turned down all invitations since 1996 so they just assumed that she would not be interested in playing. Jennifer Shahade rarely gets invited to anything so when the rest of the other women declined they turned to her.”
Really? SO kindly explain why Polgar accepted a USCF invitation to play in the 2006 Women’s World Chess Cup in Dresden, Germany in July 2006? And by the way, she won and was on the cover of chess life, the one with the soccer ball.
Shahade in the mean time has not played chess since 2004.
Another brilliant theory! Next?
Susan,
Chess relates to life – “they” are using tactics against you. In this case, it happens to be “exclusionary tactics.” Just like in the fast-food or sales business, a manager may not want to go through the uncomfortable process of firing someone; instead the employee’s hours are cut way back forcing the employee to quit, thus saving the manager the hassle.
Now back to your case, “they” are excluding you from information and rightful participation. They want to make you mad, disgusted, etc., so you will quit. The best way to beat this tactic is take the disappointments in stride, professionally point out their error, and ride the storm out. If I’ve learned one thing: God don’t like ugly, and those who try to rob you of your dignity will be humbled.
Tweedle Dumb said…
“Really? SO kindly explain why Polgar accepted a USCF invitation to play in the 2006 Women’s World Chess Cup in Dresden, Germany in July 2006? And by the way, she won and was on the cover of chess life, the one with the soccer ball.”
I will try to explain this again. (I do not know what happened to my last explanation).
The USCF did NOT invite her play in the 2006 Women’s World Football Cup in Dresden, Germany. The USCF had nothing to do with that event and did not even know about it. Nor did FIDE. Susan was personally invited to attend, it had nothing to do with the USCF. It was primarily a football event with chess on the side, which is the reason why a picture was published of Susan kicking a football.
“I will try to explain this again. (I do not know what happened to my last explanation).
The USCF did NOT invite her play in the 2006 Women’s World Football Cup in Dresden, Germany. The USCF had nothing to do with that event and did not even know about it. Nor did FIDE. Susan was personally invited to attend, it had nothing to do with the USCF. It was primarily a football event with chess on the side, which is the reason why a picture was published of Susan kicking a football.”
This is the 2nd time you are giving misinformation. You are completely incorrect. I was NOT invited by the organizer. The organizer in Dresden never contacted me. They sent out invitations to 32 federations, one of which is the USCF. I was invited by the USCF. The invitation came directly from Jerry Nash.
If I declined my invitation, it would have gone to the next player which was Irina Krush. I received no appearance fees or special condition from the USCF or the organizer. I competed with the same condition as the other players.
Susan Polgar
Don’t worry Susan. Anon 9:53 is just another uninformed troll. Simply ignore idiot who’s afraid to put his own name next to his lies.
Anonymous 9:53pm, I’ll say this again, you’re a moron and you’re wrong again on your stupid speculation.
Anon 10:00 am is no other than Jack-Ass Laugherty back from the toilet regions of cyberspace called rec.chess.politics.
If the jack-ass would discover a better oulet for his impotence like killing bugs or making farting-noises with his arm-pits, then maybe he would get off the Internet and get a life!
Log off Jack-ass!
Jack-ass Exterminator,
It wasn’t judge Laughing-boy who is speading his filth in Susan’s blog. My Internet records show that it was the Real Sam Sloan who has been posting and infact is Anon 10:00 AM.
The proof is right here: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.politics/browse_thread/thread/1d1a6f80806650c2#
Sam Slaon is the turd that emerged from the posterior of humanity’s backside. Someone needs to flush him now out of respect for all humanity. He stinks and is old and wrinkly too.
http://groups.google.com/group/
rec.games.chess.politics/
browse_thread/thread/
1d1a6f80806650c2#
It has been posted that now you have been invited to China, but you are refusing to play.
What is the story??
Where does it say she’s invited? It’s only the trash Sloan is throwing out there. The FIDE official said that she can be a sub IF someone withdraw from the team or be a sub for individual blitz and rapid. Someone who is clearly the best female rapid / player in the country should receive an invitation as a reserved player behind a player rated 1466 in rapid? Only someone with Sloan’s brain can argue this.
Why feed the idiot? It’s obvious that Sloan was trying to post as anon.
Susan, I am a novice to chess, and yet I have heard about how much you have done to promote chess in the US, particularly among female players. Can’t believe you have been snubbed.