Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Soap Opera

It’s a shame that chess in the US is so screwed up. I mean, just look at this article, and the comments to the article in particular. So many screwed-up personalities, politics etc. It’s really sad to see that the USCF resembles a soap opera more than anything else. Which reminds me, I want to read Evans’ new book.

US chess players can only dream of an environment like, for example, in Germany. Everything is well organized and professionally managed; there are many sponsors and a large number of very good tournaments, an extraordinary chess league (with players such as Anand, Shirov, Carlsen, Svidler etc), very strong and traditional chess clubs, etc. Must be nice…

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you read the comment by Marcus Roberts in the NYT article?

It is my position that the USCF should be bankrupted. Child molesters run the federation,
they have certain former officers (me) of terroist attacks, and they support drug testing. It is my view that chess is a horrible, immoral game, that needs to be abolished. I will do everything in my power to bankrupt the US Chess Federation.


Bizarre...

Chessaholic said...

yeah I saw that comment, it's so outlandish and bizarre that I wonder if it's for real...

drunknknite said...

Did you see this a little while ago?

And Susan Polgar's response.

Very weird stuff, I don't understand what the struggle is about. Why can't they just be adults and run the fucking organization? They run it like a high school chess club. It would be cool if a competing organization emerged that just ran FIDE rated tournaments and ignored the USCF completely and was run by competent professionals.

Chessaholic said...

drunknknite: I hadn't seen that article, thanks. Feels like there's hardly a week without some crazy story about the USCF. I couldn't agree more - they're running it like a high school club. It's absolutely pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Marcus Roberts is a crackpot. He started threatening people at the US Open in Cherry Hill. He was tossed out of the hotel.

Not putting my real name here just in case he reads this stuff. Seriously sick individual.

Anonymous said...

I read the book and put a review up on my blog if you are interested. You think the USCF is messed up, wait'll you learn about FIDE.

Chessaholic said...

petey: I read your review when you posted it in December. It makes me want to read the book even more :) Yeah, there's lots of negative publicity for FIDE - I mean, just think back to Kasparov's and Nigel Short's fights with FIDE...