Since many USCF members already received their ballots, this will be an open USCF election thread to discuss the issues and the candidates. Please keep it clean.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
USCF Open Election Thread
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I’m very disappointed about Joe Lux. He just lost my vote today. A few months ago, he falsely accused Susan of trying to compete against his boss Bill Goichberg.
Apparently, someone put him up to it for political reason and he looked foolish because he didn’t bother to check and decided to blindly attack. To his credit, he apologized for his false statement.
Today, he criticized Dr. Korenman for organizing a major event to benefit kids nationwide. Korenman even got Barrack Obama to agree to come to this event to boost chess. Instead of thanking Dr. Korenman, Joe Lux decided to blast him.
Joe, who has done nothing more than being a TD and coach, who has no other experience, decided to reckless attack his opponents with Sam Sloan style.
We don’t need another reckless person like Sam Sloan on the board and he promptly lost my vote. That vote will now go to Mr. Jim Berry.
I just read that too and it’s a pity. I though Lux was a nice guy and now I see that he’s just a front man for Bill Goichberg and company. They’re afraid of what Dr. Korenman and Paul Truong can do so they attack them relentlessly. I won’t vote for Berry but my intended vote for Lux will now go to Mikhail Korenman.
I voted today and my 4 votes went to Polgar, Korenman, Truong and Berry.
I voted for Korenman, Polgar, Bauer and Truong.
Polgar, Truong, Schultz and Korenman.
I can’t vote for any person recommended by Jerry Hanken and Goichberg. I was at the lobby of the Riviera hotel last night at 11:45 at night when GM Polgar arrived. She was minding her own business waiting in line to check in. A few players came up to her asking for her autograph. She looked tired but was very gracious with everyone. All of a sudden, Jerry Hanken driving up behind her with his scooter and started to insult her in front of everybody.
He was praising Bill Goichberg and just let her have it in front of everyone. If it was me, I would have smacked him but she conducted herself like a true ambassador. She said I am sorry you feel that way and that was it. He still went on and on after that.
He did this before one other time in front of me in Chicago. He shouted at somebody in the lobby to praise Sam Sloan and insulted this person.
The old regime of Goichberg, Schultz, Lux, Jones, etc. have to go. They can’t help the USCF and they’re holding it back.
I will only vote for 3: Polgar, Korenman and Truong.
I won’t vote for Lux even before this episode today. He’s a very mean spirited guy. I know him for 35 years and there’s no way I would want him on the board. No thanks. BTW, my votes went to Troung, Jones, Polgar and Bauer.
Why don’t you go back to where you came from and take that idiot husband of yours with you. You shouldn’t be allowed to run in this election. You’re a disgrace to chess. Stephen Jones, Joe Lux, Don Schultz and Mike Goodall are much more qualified than you. Go away.
I can only decide on 2 so far: Polgar and Korenman. 4 others are on my list for the final 2 spots: Bauer, Berry, Schultz and Trong.
Channing, Shahade… Oh wait. They’re not on the list. I guess I have to settle for Berry, Schultz, Polgar and Truong.
Can I vote for 5 candidates?
I don’t know why people are making a big fuss about the marriage of Polgar. I think it’s great that they can work together. If I work with my wife, I would be sleeping in the dog house. They work well together and that’s a plus in my book. I also like Korenman who’s a strong scholastic person. I’m divided between Bauer and Berry since we only need 1 finance person on the board.
Berry, Bauer, Polgar and Koreman for me.
As someone relatively new to the USCF, I would appreciate some solid examples of the “too many bad business decisions” (besides Sam), and your team’s planned response.
problem is they dont women running show bcause they kno it will b run graciously with dignity n run the rite way they must b bush supportors susan u will prevail shame on u eb all of u wht gives u rite to critisize someone who has done nothin but make chess better r u better then everyone els apparterntly u all think so just as hillsary will b president
Schultz and Goichberg pushed to hire Jennifer Shahade without interviewing anyone else. Jenn is great but why not give any other candidate a chance to be interviewed? And why $40,000 a year for 3 articles a week on the US chess website when you could hire 2-3 people part time for 2-3 times more work.
Schultz and Goichberg gave the $50,000 website deal for the revamp of the USCF website and once again, they did not interview anyone else. The website didn’t work and now they have to hire another company to come in and fix it.
But not a word about this was told the USCF members. In addition, there was also no open bidding for the second company to fix the website.
Last year, the USCF spent $10,000 to have a retreat for a bunch of USCF politicians. It could have been done at Crossville or other locations for $1,000.
They also made horrible decisions to lose a few multimillion dollar potential sponsors.
To be honest, I’m not sure what Paul, Susan or anyone else can do with the horrific reputation of the USCF right now. Bill Hall stated last year at the US Open that the USCF was trying to give away free ad space to big companies and they all said no after finding out about our leaders. Now Goichberg wants us to vote for another few more like this.
How do we know that the vote won’t be rigged at USCF Headquarters? What security measurements are in place?
Does anyone know? Maybe SS is in charge of that? 😉
Women shouldn’t be allow to run this federation. This federation is dominated by male players and should be lead by a man. I urge you to vote for the candidates recommended by Bill Goichberg. He got the right idea.
I don’t think any believes it’s wrong that both husband and wife are running for the board. I think a lot of people (including me) thinks it’s wrong to both run and not disclose it.
And saying we only need 1 finance person doesn’t make sense to me. 1 is a business man, 1 is a public sector person, both are vitally tied to charactistics of USCF; besides Berry runs a bank, which is more than just finance, it is primarily executive management. I say we need both of them. Plus Bauer did a great job last time on the Board, and Berry recently did great work for his home state in chess. We need both of them.
On the other hand, there have been many threads discussing the relatively small number of businesses and organizations that would event consider sponsoring chess, it doesn’t make sense to me to have both Korenman and Truong, who are in that area of expertise.
Considering the husband-wife thing, I have to vote for Polgar, Korenman, Bauer, and Berry. I would even go so far to say no Polgar because of the lack of disclosure on her part, but her name recognition is too important for USCF to pass up.
I don’t want Polgar on the board. We chased GM Alburt away. We didn’t elect Seirawan. We also don’t need Polgar. GMs can go and form their own organization. Don’t expect to get freebies from me. Why do we need a Chinese guy running an American chess federation? Are you crazy? And a Russian? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ll vote for Sam Sloan, Mike Goodall, Stephen Jones and Joe Lux.
Did Susan allow Sam Sloan to post here? What the heck are some of these comments? Did all the freaks come out today?
I wish I can vote for 5 candidates.
Did you read Schultz’s June candidate’s statement? It is a perfect reason NOT to vote for him. He brags so much about getting jackets for the US Junior team (Jackets!!??), then at the end he makes this nonsense vague remark about motherhood.
Paul, Mikhail, Randy and Susan. My 5th choice is Jim.
Can anyone please tell me what Mr. Jones, Lux, Goodall and Sloan have done for chess?
Thanks.
Dan
I will give my personal opinion.
One problem is that if you start mentioning names then you have problems with liable. The opposition have been saying they will sue Susan and Paul so they have to keep a low profile by not mentioning names.
If you follow the USCF Forums you will soon see it is much worse than Susan claims. You might try going over threads of the past few months. They are all attacks against Susan and Paul.
I have never met Joe Lux, but he is all negative on the forums. He always attacks Susan and Paul. He works for Goichberg for long time. Works at World Open for long time. Goichberg has put up Lux as his buddy. I will be careful and not say anything that might get me sued.
There are newbies for a month with several hundreds of posts almost all intense attacks on Susan and Paul.
Everyone at USCF is running scared of Susan and Paul. They know Susan and Paul will run it honestly and changes will be made. All the money they spend paying themselves to be TD at major tournaments will disappear.
Jones is another attacker but he tries to not do it so frequently. If my memory is correct then Jones was put up by Hal Bogner another attacker of Susan and Paul. They now have a couple of other people to do the dirty work for them. People who do not play chess. Just joined USCF and immediately attack Susan and Paul.
I considered Jim Berry but he fought against the Scholastic group in Oklahoma. So I will go with Bauer and Korenman for sure. Jim Berry is not really a finance man like Randy Bauer. Even many of the enemies of Susan will vote for Randy. He is solid. Jim Berry was a Stockbroker. My experience is all the stockbrokers I ever talked to lied to me and would sell their mother down the drain for a dollar. I don’t want a stocbroker on the EB. After retirement the bank hired him because Jim knows the local money people. The bank wants them for business. But Jim is not a finance person like Randy Bauer.
I am not going to play games with my desire to see change at USCF. I will be voting for Susan, Paul, Randy and Mikhail. Not a chance of my changing any votes. I have spent months on the USCF Forums reading everything and observing. The place is corrupt in my view. I want a complete turnover to new honest people with a vision. Susan is great and so is Paul Randy and Mikhail. I could not ask for better people.
I am a life member for 30 years and a regular member for a long time before then. I have observed the incompetence for all that time. In the old times I never could understand why things were always so bad. Now I see it is plain old corruption deep to the core.
Jerry Hanken is a pawn for others. He is afraid that he will lose his little lucritive articles he writes or interviews for chess life. How would you like free all expenses paid to all the best tournamets and then get paid for talking to someone for a few minutes and typing up some notes. Just one little way to siphon off the money and claim constant loses.
Watch out for Mike Goodall. He states he is friends with Sam Sloan and that he aspires to be just like Sam Sloan. He really wants to be just like him. Except he does not want to have the internet site like Sam does. But the views he has expressed about our country and the soldiers in Iraq already make him someone that any sponsor will not get near. So be careful here. Mike Goodall might turn out to be another Sam Sloan in a different name but the same end result. Loss of Sponsors.
My fear of Jones as a lawyer is that he will be sitting there looking for a way to sue the USCF. Kind of dangerous. The uscf has paid counsel or a retained law firm. We do not need the risk of having a lawyer sit in on all the info gathering it so that he can sue the USCF. Remember Jones opposes Susan and if he could sue the USCF accusing Susan of something what might you guess might happen then. There are people at USCF who really want to destroy Susan and Paul. I am not saying that Jones wants to sue the USCF. But why take the risk.
Hmmm, still thinking…
Sam Sloan certainly can go pound sand as far as I’m concerned. A thoroughly despicable human being and definitely NOT the kind we want on the USCF board.
Why would Sam Sloan accuse Sam Sloan of fixing the ballot box?
Any theories?
Mailed my ballot today. Voted for your entire slate. Hope you win and that you make an improvement. Just, don’t change art directors. Finally that magazine is no longer an embarassment to carry around… it finally looks good.
To all the cronies currently residing on the USCF Board…when the election is over and you all must go back to whatever cave you crawled out of and the USCF has new leaders that will actually help our sport….you can always comfort yourself by reapeating to yourself over and over the words of Shakespeare:
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
You’ll be parting from your current position, and how sweet the victory shall be!
GM Polgar and FM Truong along with the rest of the team will bring back to our sport something that has been lost since, I’d say, the late 19th century….
HONOR
INTEGRITY
HONESTY
Chess used to be an honorable game. It shall be again! GM Polgar and her team got my vote today….
The future looks really bright for American chess.
Voted the Polgar slate all the way.
Something is very wrong with this guy Lux. Who is he? Why does he think he’s better than Dr. Korenman or GM Polgar? He’s behaving like Sam Sloan by blasting his mouth off recklessly. That’s scary.
Harry Payne and Brian Lafferty are now the new Sam Sloan. And they’re recommending Joe Lux and Stephen Jones. That’s really make you think twice about these 2 candidates. Just for that alone, they lost my votes.
I’m leaning toward Berry, Bauer, Polgar and Korenman with Truong next.
I won’t vote for Jones, Lux and Schultz because of Goichberg’s endorsement. It’s a big conflict of interest to run CCA and the USCF but of course that doesn’t bother Bill, does it? Bill only cares about what’s best for CCA and nothing else.
I known Jim Berry for 35 years,he is a great chess organizer and chess fanatic…he gets my vote!!
When will these elections be (finally) over?
It’s all getting real old…
to Anon 9:15
“honesty” in politics?
What planet are you from?! jk 😉
I feel that Goichberg, Hanken and company have the right to attack and insult Susan. This is a part of politics. She’s stupid if she doesn’t want to fight back. That’s why Susan is not fit to be the USCF President. We need people who’s not afraid to fight everyone. We need a fighter and not an ambassador. This is also the nature of women. That’s why women shouldn’t be in charge of this federation. We need men who’s willing whatever it takes. That’s why I’ll vote for Sam Sloan, Joe Lux, Stephen Jones and Mike Goodall.
I have an issue. I posted a comment on the other board with some mildly critical statements (some praise too, and some facts supporting the opinions). It was not posted! Other posts after mine were posted. Note that both of these forums are moderated so the posts have to be allowed through. Why are the racist and sexist posts being allowed though but not a post that is only mildly critical?
The USCF local tournament director test is to hard and most of the questions are not in the USCF rulebook…so no new directors and very few new members.I hope the new EB members change this!
This was just posted by Mr. Don Schultz:
I note this comment from an anonymus source appearing on Susan Polgar’s website:
“. . . .the sad part is people who Goichberg endorsed such as . . . Don Schultz can’t speak up against Goichberg. So what will happen if they get elected? They will do what Goichberg tell them to do. None of them have any ideas of what to do.”
How unfair and untrue. Bill Goichber and I have strong disagreements on a great deal and we fight tooth and nail for our positions (in meetings, on the phone and via email). But we concentrate on the issues, to his credit Bill supports me anyway.
For example, on events like the US championship Bill favors a swiss and the use of qualifiers, I favor knock-outs or round-robins though agree with qualifier concept in priinciple. Bill is, it seems to me, more willing to accept complications to increase income,
Bill is a more bird-in-the-hand man than I am.
I favor a defending national champion approach , he accepts it in certain situations dpending on the circumstances.
Bill favors more tournament result detail in CL than I.
We both are uncompromising in our strong opposition to Ilyumzhinov and favor a greater role of Bessel Kok in FIDE.
So to those who think,because of our friendship and mutual overall support that I am a vote a rubber stamp vote for Bill Goichberg, they are dead wrong and should listen to the tapes of our meetings before making such a conclusion.
Don Schultz
———-
Nice try ChessDon! What do you have to say about Goichberg’s post card and email endorsing you and putting GM Polgar in the same level as Sam Sloan. Boy, you sure were silence. Let’s try again, don’t BS us. Admit the truth. You want to win so badly that you’re willing to allow others to destroy your opponents for you.