Palace Coup Fails: Beatriz Marinello ousted as President and Resigns

On Saturday night, August 13, 2005, hanging around the hotel lounge, I
heard someone say that a terrible, horrible thing was about to happen
and there were going to be fireworks. "What is the worst thing to
happen that you can possibly think of?", this person asked.

I thought and I thought and the worst thing I could possibly think of
was that Beatriz Marinello had taken all the money and run off to
Chile, but that could not possibly be true because Beatriz Marinello
was still walking around the hotel.

Walking around the hotel, I overheard the name of Leroy Dubeck being
mentioned and the term "Palace Coup" being used. Still, I just could
not think of why that term had been brought up.

Nevertheless, there were some highly agitated present and future board
members meeting and some intense conversations taking place.

The next day, there were no major floor fights, other than the floor
fight to prevent me from running again. Everything else appeared to go
smoothly.

The last event of the delegate's meeting was the traditional turnover
ceremony where the old board leaves the dais and the new board goes up
on stage and takes their places. When the new board assembled, Bill
Goichberg announced that, as it was 3:10 PM, the new board would leave
the room, go into closed session and return at 4:10 PM.

One hour later, four members of the new board, Bill Goichberg, Joel
Channing, Don Schultz and Greg Shahade, arrived and went up on stage.
Missing were Robert Tanner and Beatriz Marinello. Bill Goichberg
looked surprised and announced that we would have to wait until the
others had arrived.

Five minutes later, Robert Tanner came in and took his seat on the
dais. Beatriz Marinello did not appear.

Finally, after a few more tense moments, Bill Goichberg took the
microphone and announced: "Beatriz Marinello has resigned".

Everybody was surprised, because when Beatriz Marinello had left the
room one hour earlier at 3:10 PM, she had shown every indication of
returning in an hour and continuing on the board.

Bill Goichberg then said into the microphone, "This is not in writing.
I will not accept this as a resignation until it is in writing."

Robert Tanner then added, "She did leave one loophole. She said that
she is going to resign. Not that she had resigned."

The otherwise boring meeting continued and soon concluded.

Later that evening, I asked my original source what the terrible,
horrible thing had been and why no fireworks had come up. He said that
there had been a crisis but it had been averted by a brilliant
maneuver. He said that he could not tell me now what had happened, but
promised he would tell me at some future date.

Later, another authoritative source wheeled in and told me what had
actually happened.

Beatriz Marinello probably through Leroy Dubeck had set up a palace
coup which would effectively have prevented the election of a new
president and therefore would result in Beatriz Marinello having
another two years as president.

The palace coup was basically that Tanner and Shahade had been
contacted and agreed not to vote for Bill Goichberg as the new USCF
President. Robert Tanner would run for President against Goichberg.
This would lead to a tie vote under which there would be a three to
three tie vote, with Channing, Schultz and Goichberg voting in favor
of Goichberg and Beatriz, Tanner and Shahade voting for Tanner.
Without a majority vote there would be no new president and thus
Beateriz Marinello would continue on for another two years as
president.

The Palace Coup failed when at the last moment Tanner and Shahade
backed out or chickened out of the plan and voted for Goichberg.
Goichberg had told Tanner, "I have these three votes and that is not
going to change." Tanner realized that he could never get the fourth
vote to become president. Tanner finally realized that if there was a
tie vote, and they did not vote for Bill, Beatriz would continue as
president. This explains why Beatriz conducted herself civilly and
professionally throughout the delegate's meeting and then to
everyone's surprise suddenly disappeared and was not there when the
meeting re-convened at 4:10 PM. Her palace coup had just failed, Bill
Goicherg had just been elected for a two-year term as USCF President.
Therefore, Beatriz Marinello had resigned and left.

Beatriz did return the following day, but that was because she is
being sent by the USCF to a FIDE meeting in Germany on Wednesday,
where she is running for election as FIDE President for the Americas.

Sam Sloan

if you think g. shahade can be manipulated, you need to do your homework

As long as ICC remains functional I don't care who is president of
the USCF.

Old Haasie

"Sam Sloan" Beatriz did return the following day, but that was because
she is being sent by the USCF to a FIDE meeting in Germany on Wednesday,
where she is running for election as FIDE President for the Americas.


Truly Politics! Someone that sucked ass here is being sent to Europe so that
she can spread her crap somewhere else!