(ray doetsch) wrote in message . com...
The USCF has had a chronic illness for years. Now it will soon die.
The ultimate cause of its demise, other than extremely poor and
inefficient management, is something over which it had no
control,namely,the COMPUTER.This invention has eliminated the main
reason for the USCF in that no longer is it necessary to attend
tournaments to play. Furthermore, internet servers like FICS
and ICC(if you want to pay a membership fee) have removed the long,
often boring,onerous, and often costly week-end Swiss tournaments. I
have played more people from more countries than on internet chess
than I ever did as a USCF member. True, the play is not quite like
OTB, and there may be some cheating, but all in all this is the coupe
de gras for the USCF. Comments ?

One comment: the expression is "coup de grace." "coup" is pronounced
as "koo" and "grace" is pronounced as "grahs." If you want to be
supertechnical about it, you can put a circumflex accent on the letter
"a" but the French Academy feels that the circumflex has outlived its
day.

David Ames