On Sep 21, 6:41 am, The Historian wrote:
On Sep 21, 3:24 am, samsloan wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty Miller Sam: Why do you think the F-K Gothic Chess Match was a "con"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty Miller The signature from Karpov on the website looks a lot like the autograph of his that I have. I got it when he was in Seattle now many years ago for a candidates match. The Goodwill Games people had me and several other chess people for a lunch with Karpov and his then wife. The pictures from Iceland look real enough. Of course Fischer never showed up to sign. Wonder how much Fischer got in advance to come to the meeting in Iceland that he never came to. That action as I understand is typical of Bobby over the years. It took a lot of effort to get him to Iceland to play the 1972 match. The Gothic Chess fellow probably did not have the time to wait around for Fischer. Sam, thanks for posting the website giving more details than what has appears on "the other forum". Rusty Miller, Chelan WA

I have no doubt that the signature of Karpov is real. Of course,
Karpov will play a match with anybody at anything for 14 million
dollars (as would you or me).

However, the whole thing was absurd, ridiculous.

The guy's plan was then to get Fischer to sign and then to go to
Donald Trump and ask him for the 14 million (as though Trump, who is
often bankrupt, would give 14 million for such a scheme).

Stranger things have happened.

In the middle of this was Rob Mitchell, who is undoubtedly the same
Rob Mitchell who I banned from my Yahoo group (thereby acquiring the
distinction of being the only person ever to be banned from my group).
Rob Mitchell wanted to be paid $35,000 in advance, claiming that he
already had both Fischer and Karpov on board, when it turned out that
Karpov had never heard of him and Fischer obviously had not either.

The address at the bottom of the Chess Masterminds LLC "deal memo" is
that of Mr. Mitchell's insurance agency in Nashville. While we should
be careful to note that we have only one person's word regarding the
incident, much of the story rings true based on what I've read on the
newsgroup and what I've seen of Mr. Mitchell's behavior and the
company he travels with.

So, it was a bunch of people trying to con each other, none of whom
knew anything about chess or had any money.

There's no sign that the Gothic Chess organization was trying to "con"
anyone. You as a trader banned from the securities industry should
know a con as well as anyone, but it appears you are badly mistaken.

As for not knowing anything about chess, the founder of the Gothic
Chess group was a regular player in the Philadelphia area. He knew Dan
Heisman, as the blog posting explained. I published a correspondence
game between Ed Trice and Samuel Reshevsky in one of my first articles
for Correspondence Chess News.

OK. Points taken.

However, it is clear that "Rob Mitchell" was trying to con Ed Trice
out of $35,000 by claiming that he had Fischer and Karpov on board.

Sam Sloan