Gary Walters' USCF Thread

Over at the USCF Forums, Hal Bogner started a cool thread asking GW what if anything he has done or even learned since he got elected. Also, what are his stands on the issues.

Good start, but since it was GW of course the thread descended to pure drivil. (Sigh!)

Election Year Again

Yes, again. They seem to be having one every year now. Already the trashing has begun. Sevan Murdian is an International Abritrator for the World Chess Federation and runs many tournaments both International and Local. He's been tagged as being pro-Susan Polgar (he's not really, but whatever) so he's being attacked in the usual fashion. Investigations have uncovered a cell phone having gone off in one of his tournaments (he disciplined the player) and of course, the usual personal pecedillos. They had to do a lot of digging to find them but with a sufficient amount of ruthlessness and determination, I gues water can be struck, no matter how deep they got sink the shaft.

Meanwhile, Gary Walters, another candidate is skating right through because he has never done anything - no experience in chess clubs, state organizations, tournament directing, so there's nothing to criticize.

Walters' Chess Qualifications

Here's a short list:

Chess Club Official: None
Tournament Director: None
State Affiliate: None
USCF Committeework: None
Newsletter/Magazine: None
Blog: Started one after he announced his campaign. (See below.)

Walters is saying the typical things chess politicians say when they have no real credentials:

a) He's going to represent the players, since he has no organizer experience.

Trying to turn a liability into an asset. So, why didn't/won't he represent the players in his state or his local chess club?

b) He's passionate about chess.

Sure, and the other pols are not? Since his one claim to contributing to chess other than just playing it is this blog, it sure would be nice if there were at least more than one post to it since Feb. 18 - and that was just a crosstable!

c) He's posted 300 odd comments to the USCF's Issues Forum. Mostly mean, nasty attacks or else some petty comment. These means that he fits right in with the USCF politics culture. (Sigh!)

----------

Note John Hillery's comment to yesterday's post. Walters should be elected only to keep Sam Sloan out. This is what the USCF has come to.

The Race for Executive Board

Since Susan Polgar and Paul Truong were forced off last year, their seats are vacant. This July the members will elect 2 people to replace them. 3 candidates have filed:

1) Mike Neitman, who has served for a very long time in Scholastic Chess Committees and has a long record in USCF affairs.

2) Gary Walters, who has no record at all but has played a few rated games in the past few years. He has also posted 300+ times on the USCF's forums, mostly attacking yours truly.

3) Sam Sloan, who has a very long record in USCF affairs but it is really bad. He served 1 year on the EB in 2006-2007.

Of the candidates, Neitman is a lock, so the real election is between Walters and Sloan for that last seat. Because Sloan is so unacceptable, people are trying to pump up Walters by exagerating his qualifications and downgrading the qualifications expected of an Executive Board Member.

I shall provide much more explanations of this short summary in the future.