Bill Goichberg
Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:54 pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[samsloan wrote:]
[Bill Goichberg] wrote:
samsloan wrote:
[Bill Goichberg] wrote:
I believe that it is internal corporate information
and that USCF officials may quote from it, but
are expected to exercise good judgment. For
example, a misuse of this information is to
post a list of checks and publicly suggest
without evidence that these checks were
improperly paid.

Bill Goichberg

It is to be recalled that back in August, Bill
Goichberg had me publicly censured and
reprimanded for stating that Polgar had received
$39,000 from the USCF.

However, I have just demonstrated that Polgar
has received considerably more than $39,000
from the USCF.

There was no censure or reprimand in August.

What I complained about in August was your claim
that $39,000 was paid to Paul Truong because he
"had contracts," including $20,000 because of
Diane Reese's erroneous invitation and $19,000
towards the Olympiad Training Program.

The $20,000 ($5000 per player bonus) was actually
$15,000 and was paid to Krush, Zatonskih, and
Shahade. Polgar waived her claim to $5000.
Contrary to what you wrote, each player had a
contract with USCF, Truong was not part of these
contracts.

Bill Goichberg

You are splitting hairs here. Certainly anybody reading
these postings by Bill Goichberg would reasonably
conclude that neither Polgar nor Truong were paid
anything at all.

Sam, you are confusing two different things he

1. Payments for the erroneous Olympiad invitation and for
the Women's Olympiad Training Program.

2. Other payments to Susan Polgar, for simuls, lectures,
book purchases, her column, etc.

The total paid to Polgar for all these things may well be
more than $39,000, but what you alleged was that #1
alone was $39,000 and that this sum was paid to Paul
Truong. This is highly inaccurate. The amount paid as a
result of the Olympiad error was $15,000- $5000 each to
Zatonskih, Krush, and Shahade. The amount paid for the
Olympiad Training Program was about $19,500, all
matching funds based on receipts for training. I believe that
Truong received none of this money, but Polgar did receive
some in return for training the other members of the team.
I don't remember the exact amount she received but think it
was under $5000. I have posted all this before.

[samsloan wrote]:
Now, we finally figure out that when Bill Goichberg
stated that Truong was paid very little, he is referring to
Truong individually, not Truong as the "business
manager" (as he calls himself) of Susan Polgar.

No, I was not saying this. The alleged "$39,000 to Truong"
was really $34,500 of which I believe nothing was paid to
Truong, either individually or as the business manager of
Polgar.

[samsloan wrote]:
I think that everybody else understood my meaning,
which was that Polgar was paid $39,000.

I don't know if many people think that when you say
"Truong was paid $39,000" you mean "Polgar was paid
$39,000." But even if we grant that you said Truong when
you meant Polgar, to claim that Polgar received $39,000
from the Olympiad error plus the Olympiad Training
Program is not close to being correct.

[samsloan wrote]:
Also, as to the claim that Polgar waived for payment of
$5,000, Bill Goichberg omits the fact that Polgar agreed
to take the $5,000 as payment for something else.

This is misleading. She waived the payment on the
condition that she be hired to appear at the National
Scholastics, but the fee was her usual fee (the lower fee
agreed to after Niro left, not the much higher one Niro
agreed to). USCF was probably going to hire her anyway
for this fee.

[samsloan wrote]:
Bill Goichberg implies that some of this money went to
Boris Gulko or Garry Kasparov for training the woman's
team. However, Kasparov was not paid anything.

USCF received a receipt from KCF showing that Kasparov
was paid.

[samsloan wrote]:
To the contrary, the Kasparov Chess Foundation or
KFC paid money to the women players, not the other
way around. I doubt that Boris Gulko was paid
anything either.

KFC sponsored the 2004 Women's Olympiad Team and
paid the players' fees and expenses, but why do you infer
from this that the Training Program didn't pay Kasparov
and Gulko?

[samsloan wrote]:
I have however apologized and expressed regret for my
statement that Polgar was paid $39,000. Polgar was
paid more like $40,000 to $50,000. I regret the error.

You alleged that Truong (you now say Polgar) was paid
$39,000 for the Olympiad error and Olympiad Training
Program. Now that this has been shown to be totally
wrong, you are trying to defend it by bringing in money that
Polgar was paid for tournament appearances and her
Chess Life column.

[samsloan wrote]:
In addition, look through Chess Life and you will see
free ads for Polgar. For example, page 71 of the
January Chess Life has a half page ad for Susan
Polgar's Group Tour of Hungary, where you can get to
meet Susan Polgar herself! The cost of this tour is
$2499.95, inclusive of airfare. This is clearly a
commercial ad and yet Polgar pays nothing for it. She
gets it for free in settlement of a lawsuit she threatened
to bring. There are also free ads for Polgar on pages 38
and 60 of the January Chess Life and a gratuitous
picture of Polgar on page 5 of the January Chess Life.

I am not aware which ads are free, but believe that Polgar
did make a deal with USCF which included free ads. The
January Chess Life was prepared before Polgar was an
announced candidate.

[samsloan wrote]:
All this at a time when Polgar is a declared candidate
for election. Why do not any of the other nine
candidates get free ads and free pictures of
themselves in Chess Life?

Unlike the other candidates, Polgar is a chess celebrity,
and news reporting about her activities should not stop
because of the election. However, I agree that now that
she is a candidate, the editor should avoid the type of
special feature coverage she has been receiving.

[samsloan wrote]:
Meanwhile, since August I have been demanding as a
board member that Bill Goichberg provide me with a
copy of the contract Susan Polgar signed with Frank
Niro to write a column for Chess Life and also a copy
of the contract she says that she and the other
woman players were "forced to sign" to play on the
woman's team. I have also demanded a copy of the
allegedly erroneous letter by Diane Reese. Bill claims
that USCF records have not been lost or destroyed
but he still cannot find the contracts. (By the way, the
other contracts that were eventually produced were
found in the lawyer's office, not in the USCF office. The
original contract in the USCF office still has not been
found).

I don't have any of these documents. However, I believe
that all or most exist, either at the USCF Office or that of
our attorney. The Board has supported making them
available to Board members and I will remind Bill Hall
about this. There may be an exception to this as if you are
referring to an Olympiad contract between KCF and the
players, USCF was not involved and wouldn't have that. I
think there were both KCF and USCF agreements with the
players.

[samsloan wrote]:
Also, by the way, in case you are wondering why you
have not heard much from Donna Aliere lately, that is
because she went off to investigate my allegations for
the purpose of proving them wrong and embarrassing
me, only to be discovering one by one that my
allegations are true and correct.

Donna has already answered this. As she says, the office
is currently investigating some specific issues. The only
allegation of improper behavior relating to Polgar that I
believe has been shown to be correct is the one by Donna,
that Niro was on the Polgar board at the same time that he
was USCF Executive Director.

[samsloan wrote]:
Now you can see why Bill Goichberg had me
suspended from posting to the USCF Forums.

Sam Sloan

The USCF President does not have the authority to
suspend anyone from posting.

Bill Goichberg