Very important facts about the disastrous state of the USCF. If there is no new course to be implemented soon, the USCF will not survive.
How could a national organization, an organization which claims that it has no money to do many things for the benefit of chess and it members, afford to spend $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 or perhaps even more than $1,000,000 in legal fees for political purposes? How could a national organization, an organization which at one time had annual revenues over $6 million, sink this low? Finally, how can we fix the problems, to make things better, when the problems are being hidden and kept secret from the membership at large?
https://chessdailynews.com/the-dirty-hidden-truth-additional-evidence-added/
https://chessdailynews.com/i-am-voting-for/
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2556
https://chessdailynews.com/losing-nearly-500000-so-far-in-2009/
https://chessdailynews.com/the-state-of-the-uscf/
https://chessdailynews.com/grandmasters-statement/
https://chessdailynews.com/11-candidates-for-the-next-eb-election/
http://chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2556
How come Bill Goichberg isn’t talking about his involvement in a bribery scheme for delegates’ votes? How come Jim Berry isn’t talking about his cover up of this illegal conduct by the USCF President?
Not only the President was caught red handed, he even lied about it to cover up what he and his buddies did.
On top of this, he’s making the USCF pay for his own company CCA’s legal fees. This is illegal and unethical.
Shame on you Bill! You want another 4 years with Jim Berry, Ruth Haring and Mike Atkins? I don’t think so.
You’ve destroyed the USCF enough already.
That’s the political propaganda they’re spreading to try to fool the voters to win the election. The USCF’s insurance is covering for their defense.
The big legal fees come from the USCF suing Susan and investigating her as well as other USCF members, volunteers and delegates.
What Bill Hall Goichberg says is absolute BS. Susan offered to drop the USCF for $1. Goichberg and Hall said no without consulting with the delegates. He’s using the USCF to shield his illegal and unethical conduct.
I think it is time for extreme measures here. The only answer is Bobby Fischer. We need to bring Bobby Fischer back from Iceland and get him on the executive board. It would generate huge amounts of press and media attention. I doubt the Obama Administration would mind much since Bobby was a real enemy of President Bush. Also, I suspect that nowadays Bobby would have little interest in money like some of the other e-board members. He would serve as a great counterweight to all the self serving deadwood types currently on the executive board.
Of course he would not talk about the schemes he was in, no idiot running for office would point out reasons why not to vote for a person. but when u have the power u can hide things and control what is posted on the uscf website. but mrs polgar, what are your comments to the uscf post on the website that attacks you from this week?
Anonymous about me… did you live under a rock? Bobby passed away.
I will be very impressed with Susan and Paul if they allow this comment to be posted.
I do not envy Susan’s position. She is caught between her obvious affection for chess, and her obvious affection for her husband Paul. When Paul committed a very serious ethical violation, he should have done the right thing and stepped down. He chose instead to claim that facts would eventually emerge to vindicate him. We have waited almost 2 years, and no such facts have ever emerged. Instead, Susan chose to sue the USCF. And now she professes astonishment at the fact that the organization is spending money on legal defense…
As for the accusation that Goichberg tried to bribe delegates…it’s the accusation that seems fishy to me. The SC delegate, David Grimaud, is a rock of integrity and a good friend of mine. He described the tumult of last year’s delegates’ meeting to me in detail. If there had been bribery going on, he would have known about it and told me. BTW, he attributed the failure of the Truong removal vote to Goichberg’s failure to communicate a vision about what was at stake for the org.
(Plus, if Goichberg had been practicing bribery, I would think he would have sewn up the result ahead of time and gotten the vote to pass quite easily. Which obviously didn’t happen.)
There is a mess in the USCF, indeed. I respect Susan and Paul’s dedication to the game, and the good they have accomplished in NYC and Brownsville. Unfortunately, they are unable to see that they are currently among the chief sources of problems in the USCF. I encourage them to focus on the good work they are doing at SPICE and Texas Tech.
Chris,
With all due respect, you do not know what I know. Therefore, because I respect you, I won’t go into a debate with you about this issue.
The bottom line is we offered the USCF and the board majority (back around September / October 2007) to turn over the database to an independent investigator. If the result comes back pointing to Paul as the FSS, we would both resign.
However, if the result shows that something hanky panky went on with the data, all of them would resign. They refused. If these people are willing to spend over $500,000 to get rid of us, why are they fighting so hard to hide the database for nearly 2 years?
We also asked to have our experts examine the database. They also refused.
As to Mr. Goichberg, I never shared with David about this issue. There is no possible way he would have known. It is not my intention to use the evidence to destroy Mr. Goichberg or anyone else. I don’t like the gotcha politics. But I do have all the emails between Mr. Goichberg, Mr. Hanken and the other individuals involved in this bribery case.
There are others who have corroborated the same thing and will testify to this. The evidence has been turned over to my attorneys. These gentlemen will have a lot of explaining to do. This is a very serious issue and I don’t take it lightly.
I obviously disagree with your conclusion and so do many other USCF members.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
It is quite important, though, isn’t it, that these allegations do come in front of a court? What Mr Truong is accused of is very serious. If he’s guilty, he needs to face punishment for it. If he’s not, not only is he entitled to have his name totally and publicly cleared, but he has been fitted up and those responsible should face punishment instead. What can’t be right, not now, is that the whole thing should be dropped or called off. Somebody – either Mr Truong or his accusers – is very badly at fault and a million miles below the ethical standards we’re entitled to expect of anyone involved in chess administration. And I think we’re probably entitled to know this and not be forced to speculate.
A. Mr. Truong isn’t involved in any lawsuit.
B. The USCF refused for nearly 2 years to open up the database to any independent investigator to determine if he did or didn’t do the BS they accused him of. Therefore, there’s no case.
C. What Mr. Goichberg did is 10 times more serious. Bribery is a serious criminal offense.
D. The USCF cover up is even more serious.
Mr. Bill Hall should report the conduct of Mr. Goichberg, Mr. Hough, and Mr Hanken to the proper authority. They should be prosecuted for what they did. I agree that bribery is a very serious offense. These men should never be allow to hold any position with the USCF.
Susan,
Thanks for replying, and I’m sorry I did not have time to read your reply until now.
I do want to reemphasize that I think very highly of all the hard and effective work that you and Paul have performed for chess, especially young chess players, in the past several years. I’m very glad that you have received the support of a fine university, and I look forward to all the good things you will accomplish via SPICE.
I was not aware of the offer you made to have an independent analysis of the database. I fear that the conflict between board members has become so polarized that effective communication is no longer occurring. The theory here is that you made the offer, but it was lost in the noise. And there has been a lot of noise.
There has been a lot of he-said/she-said going on, and I’m terribly distressed because I want to believe the best about all the parties, and I’m not sure whom to believe. Have you already published the details of when and how you made this offer, and who the independent expert would have been? I would imagine that this information would be highly relevant to the legal pleadings. Do your pleadings provide any info on this offer?
Also, do your legal pleadings provide any details on the emails that would substantiate an allegation of bribery? I would expect the issue to be highly relevant to the court, and germane to the success of your legal action. If, on the other hand, you are making these statements on your blog only, and are not subjecting them to the scrutiny of the legal process, it would be harder for me to rely on them.
I am hoping that you will be able to respond in detail to my questions, as I do not have the time to read all the pleadings! My one and only goal in writing this is that I’m just trying to get reliable information. Thanking you in advance for any further light you can shed on this…
Chris Falter
Chris,
I don’t have time to go back and check each post back in Sep-Oct-Nov 2007. Here are some:
The board majority is willing to put the finances of the entire federation in jeopardy. Then they complain that the federation is doing badly financially. Wait until all the members see how much money they spent on legal fees, insurance, deductibles, etc. And to finance their crusade, they want to take away the magazines from scholastic members.
If they have nothing to hide then accept my offer to open up all the evidence which both sides possess right now for an independent investigator. Here was what I said:
To support what I have been saying for months to the board majority, I am even willing to offer the idea of opening everything up for an independent investigation. The board majority can submit everything they have and I will submit everything I have. The two sides will agree to grant mutual immunity. If the independent investigation shows that Paul or I did anything unethical, we will resign from the board and never run for any USCF office again.
However, if the independent investigation shows that other board members did wrong and unethical things, the same will happen. They will immediately resign from the board and never be involved with USCF politics again. This is how confident I am of the facts (which they desperately try to hide). This federation will not survive if this board is willing to go to war in court for years because of their unwillingness to admit mistakes. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars of the federation’s money are they willing to waste?
Susan Polgar
http://www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=741#p4377
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=741#p4382
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=741#p4384
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=673#p4006
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=673#p4066
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=673&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10#p4079
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=722#p4260
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=697&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10#p4226
http://www.chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=726&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
The board and their attorneys are fighting tooth and nail to stop the release of the USCF database. A computer forensic expert did look at the data briefly and found discrepancies.
They are willing to spend $600K for lawyers to get rid of us and yet they’re not willing to accept our offer to have an independent expert examine it with an opportunity to get rid of us for no money?
You decide why not. This will be one of the critical points which will be discussed in court.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
i have just one question to susan
what do u plan 2 do with the 10 million, r u planning on usin them to benefit uscf in anyway??
Of course she would. Everything she does is for chess. If it wasn’t for people like Goichberg, Berry and Hall, the USCF would be much better off.
One tournament organizer recently made an excellent bid to the USCF to host various national championships in Chicago. One of Goichberg’s most profitable chess tournaments also takes place in Chicago at a similar time. The motion to award a multiple year bid to the Chicago organizer would have passed 3 (Yes) – 2 (No) -1 (Abstention) if Goichberg had recused himself from voting due to his conflict of interest with Continental Chess. Goichberg refused to recuse himself, and his Board majority refused to ask him (Goichberg) to recuse himself, and the motion was at a 3-3 deadlock when the Board voted. The USCF sees annual cash inflows in the range of $3.2 million through the dues of its 80,000 members, grants, gifts, advertisements, bequests, sponsorships, et cetera. At one time, the USCF annual revenues exceeded $6 million. For the last thirty years, Goichberg, through his constant presence on the USCF Executive Board, has managed to unlawfully cause many thousands of dollars to be unfairly directed to his pocket, his political allies, and the coffers of Continental Chess.
This is why Goichberg, Berry, Atkins, Haring and other Goichberg’s friends must not be elected. The corruption must end.