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.

A Loose End

Last month, I learned from Hal Bogner that the principals to the Polgar lawsuits have the files on Chess Discussion.com. (Thank you, Hal!) This website had been run by Susan Polgar but has been taken down.

From Hal, I learned that the 3 top people (Susan, Paul, and Gregory) had a super-secret section on that forum just for themselves. I infer from Hal’s comments that this was where the lawyers’ interest lay. He quoted to me some of Gregory’s et al’s comments about me that were negative.

My reactions to these disclosures:

I do not mind top management having a discussion area of their own. This is a necessary thing in most companies.

Their negative comments pertained to their judgment that I was not politically reliable. I do not mind this, either because that judgment was true. I stated many times that I wanted the truth of all that mess. My continued support of them was based on continuing bad statements and actions of the USCF and their other detractors, while noting Polgar’s bad actions, too.

Controversies related to forum management: I would have preferred to have Lafferty, Mottershead, et al to have full access to the forum. During the time, I tried various work-arounds. I was persuaded to Susan’s point of view only by (a) her desire to have the forum as non-political as possible and (b) by their exclusive and negative political content. My changing position on this front was the result of evolution, not duplicity. However, in retrospect, my biggest regret was not coming down hard on Polgar’s political supporters much earlier than I did. The policy of discouraging political diatribes was not executed fairly.

Postscript: Brian Lafferty has stated that he intends to publish the entirety of the forum someday. Believe that? Use your own judgment

The Giuoco Piano

Here's another opening for us to study - and a video to go along with it.

Lots of tactical twists, but so is the Ruy Lopez, too! Last century, this was one of the majors that everyone had to know.

Armed Forces Chess

A few days ago, I asked about this. USCF EB Member Mike Atkins responded:

The previous US Armed Forces Opens were held at:
2009- Gettysburg War Museum, Army, Chief TD/Organizer Mike Hoffpauir
2008- Bethesda Naval Hospital, Navy, Tom Belke Organzier, Ernie Schlich Chief TD
2007- Henderson Hall Marine Corps Base (On the grounds of Fort Myer, next to Arlington Cemetary), John Farrell/Organizer, Michael Atkins, Chief TD
2006 - Washington DC Old Soldier's Home, Org/Lt. Col Doug Taffinder, Chief TD/Michael Atkins
For the 2006 event we brought in as special speaker retired USAF Lt. General William Earn Brown, a chessplayer who was in one of the Tuskeegee Airman graduating classes in the late 1940's.

The US Armed Forces Open is open to solder who are active-duty, retirees (20+ year retirees) and students at the Academies.

This year's event is being organized by Lt Col Taffinder again and will be in the DC area. They do a wonderful job in securing donated prizes and have gotten financial support in the past in order to purchase great trophies. The Military Academies participate in the tournament with West Point typically bringing the most players. When it is being held on military bases, the rooms for the academy students are usually free and the EF is always free for everyone.

The Military Chair recently resigned and they are in the process of ironing out a strategy to always have a Chair. I am the EB Liaison to the Military Committe.

Mike

(Used with permission.) Here's a chess site devoted to this topic:
http://www.usmilitarychess.org/

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.

Walters' Campaign Blog

Earlier I had stated that Gary Walters, candidate for the USCF Executive Board, had done nothing in chess but put up a campaign blog after he began his electioneering. More on that in later posts, but on the blog issue John Hillery commented, saying that my characterization of his blog was unjust.

(Sadly the links do not show up in this blog very well. You have to move your cursor around to find them.)

I am not the only one who's saying this blog is for campaigning. This from the USCF's Forums, thread "I Will Only Vote Positively", post #180806, Gary Walters himself says,

I am also campaigning actively on my blog at http://graysonebc.blogspot.com/. You can find out more about me there.

This compares to Hillery's comment cited above:

"You failed to mention that he only started his blog after he launched his election campaign." [quoting me - JL]

That would be a fair point if his blog were primarily (or even significantly) about politics. It isn't. It's a chess news and analysis site, and a good one.

The point of all this is that what we have is a candidate who is not willing to work his way up but wants to start at the top. In order to make up for his lack of chess experience, he launches a blog so that he can have at least some chess thing to campaign on.

Let's face it. In a year with the USCF in a financial crisis, it is going to need a very active Executive Board, aggressively helping with fundraising and promoting. It's stuck with Walters because the alternative is so unacceptable. If the members expect this pol to be more than just a resume credential collector, they are likely to be disappointed.