Although your idea seems reasonable and has been suggested before, I
do not think it is workable, for several reasons:

1. The USCF already has trouble raising money for the USCF
Championship tournament every year. Under your plan, there would have
to be money raised for a qualifying tournament. There will be little
interest by the general public in this qualifying tournament, and the
players will not be especially interested either. You will have to pay
the top players substantial appearance fees or guaranteed prizes to
get them to play. Look at the letter Joel Benjamin had published in
"New In Chess" magazine in which he complained bitterly that the prize
fund in the US Championship in Stillwater, Oklahoma was "only"
$65,000.

2. The USCF was formed on December 27, 1939 for the purpose of holding
a US Championship tournament. Prior to that time, the championship had
been a match between the champion and a challenger. The challenger had
to raise the money for the match and there were few matches held. This
plan was obviously not very successful and I think it would be a
mistake to go back to it.

3. Several posters have written of a "media frenzy" when the US
Championship is held in a small town. I have been to many US
Championships. I do not recall a single one where there were more than
ten spectators. You were at the 2007 US Championship in Stillwater. I
think you were the only real spectator. Everybody else there was a
player or was there on business. Did the local newspapers in
Stillwater even cover it? I like to make jokes about Stillwater having
the highest paid college football team in the country. You would
imagine that there would have been some interest in a major chess
tournament there.

4. A motion similar to yours was made by Don Schultz when I was on the
board. The motion immediately got the votes of Don Schultz and Bill
Goichberg. A third board member was thinking of voting for it until I
shot it down with a letter to the board making many of the same points
as above. As a result, the Schultz motion failed. The board then
censured me for writing the letter.

The letter and the board motion censuring me for writing it was posted
on the USCF Website and it is attached here.
http://www.samsloan.com/sloan-censured-by-board.pdf

Will the board now censure anybody who disagrees with your idea?

Sam Sloan

Dear Don,

Glad to hear from you as you have been away for a while I believe. I
understand
that you have just had your 50th wedding anniversary. Congratulations,
but I do have a question. It must cost a lot of money to have 50 wives
and a wedding anniversary for each one. How can you afford it?

I am glad that you pointed out the differences between you and Bill
Goichberg. As you correctly point out, Bill always favors big Swisses,
or Frankenswisses as Tom Dorsch used to call them. Bill is entitled to
his opinion, but I strongly object to the way he organized the US
Championship in Stillwater, deciding on the format and inviting the
players that he wanted to invite without consulting the board or even
telling us what he was doing. Then, we got blamed for all the problems
he caused. Witness for example the article published by Joel Benjamin
in "New in Chess" magazine in which he blamed me, Sam Sloan, of all
people for all the problems with the US Championship when I (and for
that matter you) were left out of it in the cold and had nothing to do
with it.

For example, Bill Goichberg decided that he wanted four women in the
tournament, for what reason I do not know. When almost all of the top
women declined, Bill just kept going down the list inviting lower and
lower rated players. He finally found two experts, Iryna Zenyuk rated
2184 and Chouchanik Airapetian rated 2188, who were willing to play.
Meanwhile, Ben Finegold, a legitimate contender for the US
Championship and rated 2611, could not get an invitation.

Regarding the benefits of a match over a tournament, I wish to remind
you that in 1995, there was a title match between Kasparov and Anand
for the World Chess Championship held in New York City's World Trade
Center. In spite of being located in the media center of the world,
this event received almost no publicity.

However, I like your idea of a match between Nakamura and Kamsky. This
would be exciting to me because they are by far our most promising
players and each is a potential contender for the World Championship.
However, I do not think it needs to be a match for the US
Championship. Just a match between the two top players is enough.
Remember that the most famous match ever played in the USA was the
match between Fischer and Reshevsky and no title was at stake, only
prize money.

Sam Sloan

On Nov 8, 12:13 am, samsloan wrote:

Remember that the most famous match ever played in the USA was the
match between Fischer and Reshevsky and no title was at stake, only
prize money.

Highly debatable. World Championship matches held on US soil have
included Steinitz-Zukertort 1886, Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890-91, Lasker-
Steinitz 1894, Lasker-Marshall 1907, Kasparov-Karpov 1990, and
Kasparov-Anand 1995. It's not clear what Sloan means by "most famous,"
but I would think that at least some of these, perhaps all, were/are
more famous than Fischer-Reshevsky, especially in terms of the
attention they garnered from the chess world as a whole, as well as
from the American public.

On Nov 8, 4:36 pm, Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 8, 12:13 am, samsloan wrote:

Remember that the most famous match ever played in the USA was the
match between Fischer and Reshevsky and no title was at stake, only
prize money.

Highly debatable. World Championship matches held on US soil have
included Steinitz-Zukertort 1886, Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890-91, Lasker-
Steinitz 1894, Lasker-Marshall 1907, Kasparov-Karpov 1990, and
Kasparov-Anand 1995. It's not clear what Sloan means by "most famous,"
but I would think that at least some of these, perhaps all, were/are
more famous than Fischer-Reshevsky, especially in terms of the
attention they garnered from the chess world as a whole, as well as
from the American public.

Sloan means 'most famous since 'real chess' was played, which started
at my birth.'

Prior 2000 the US Championship was a 16 player Round Robin usually
held in New York City with a $25,000 prize fund.

All the top players played. It was rare for a top player to turn down
an invitation.

Then in 2000 AF4C came in, made it into a Swiss with qualifying
tournaments, mixed the men and women's championships and offered a
$100,000 prize fund.

In 2006, AF4C put up a record $250,000 prize fund and then was
attacked by those such as Susan Polgar who complained on her blog that
the prizes were "too small".

In 2007, Frank Berry put up $50,000 of his own personal money and Joel
Benjamin refused to play, citing the low prize fund.

In say, go back to the traditional round robin. The Goichberg-style
Big Swiss format is not working.

Sam Sloan

samsloan wrote:
Prior 2000 the US Championship was a 16 player Round Robin usually
held in New York City with a $25,000 prize fund.

All the top players played. It was rare for a top player to turn down
an invitation.

Then in 2000 AF4C came in, made it into a Swiss with qualifying
tournaments, mixed the men and women's championships and offered a
$100,000 prize fund.

In 2006, AF4C put up a record $250,000 prize fund and then was
attacked by those such as Susan Polgar who complained on her blog that
the prizes were "too small".

In 2007, Frank Berry put up $50,000 of his own personal money and Joel
Benjamin refused to play, citing the low prize fund.

In say, go back to the traditional round robin. The Goichberg-style
Big Swiss format is not working.

Sam Sloan

On these points, I agree completely with George. In the 2006 US
Championship, a player rated 1672 got in, not because she beat
somebody, but because she was the only woman willing to pay the $75
qualifier fee.

In 2007, Bill Goichberg raised the bar slightly and the lowest rated
player was a woman rated 2188.

The reason that in past years the top players almost always accepted
invitations to the US Championship was that there was prestige
associated with being in the US Championship. Now, there is no longer
any prestige. Anybody could have played in the 2007 US Championship
merely by paying the $25,000 entry fee. Two players did buy their way
into the 2007 US Championship. One paid $4,000. The other paid $5,000.

Basically, our US Championship has been sold out just to increase the
revenues of Bill Goichberg, who collects the entry fees of those
seeking to qualify from his tournaments.

Sam Sloan

Bill Goichberg's name is mentioned because he organized the 2007 US
Championship the same way he organized the World Open.

At the World Open, Bill Goichberg decided the playing dates, the time
control, the number of rounds, the entry fees, the prizes for each
section, the special rules and in short everything about the
tournament.

He was able to do that because he owns the tournament. It is his
personal property. I believe that he has a registered trade name for
the tournament.

That is fine and nobody will object because everybody knows that he
owns the tournament.

However, Bill Goichberg does not own the US Championship. The members
do. Nevertheless, he ran the US Championship the same way that he runs
the World Open, deciding whom to invite, who got in for free, who had
to pay an entry fee and how much, the format of the event, the time
control and everything else about the tournament.

I was on the board at the time and neither I nor any other board
member was ever consulted about these decisions. The first we heard
about them was when we read them on the uschess.org website.

However, everybody naturally assumes that these decisions were made by
the board. As a result, when anything goes wrong, we get the blame.
Witness for example, Joel Benjamin's letter published in "New In
Chess" magazine in which he blames all the problems with the US
Championship on me, Sam Sloan, when I had nothing to do with any of
it.

Sam Sloan

Frank Berry wrote:

This last paragraph below is total baloney because NONE of Goichberg's tourney will be used for qualification spots for the two 2008 FKB US Championships.....
As usual Sam is wrong in his criticisms, postings and conclusions.? Very Wrong. Also GM Gulko?told me yesterday he VERY MUCH wanted to qualify to play in the FKB US Championship.? VERY MUCH.? Sam is wrong to say nobody wants to play in the event anymore.? Very Wrong again.... as usual.
Frank K. Berry

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your comments and your update.

Of course, I was referring to the 2007 US Championship, not the 2008
US Championship which has not even been announced yet.

I am sure that you will do a better job and I hope you will be
successful in keeping Bill Goichberg's intrusive fingers out of the
event. Tell him to get a board resolution for any changes he tries to
insist upon.

Please try to invite Ben Finegold, who was unfairly excluded from the
2007 US Championship.

Sam Sloan

Please try to invite Ben Finegold, who was unfairly excluded from the
2007 US Championship.

Sam Sloan



How about just using the invitational formula and sticking to it...rather
than trying to play favorites?

ECJ


For a change I agree with Eric. In fact, so does A. Adorjan - several GMs
have contributed questions to a current interview of Mickey Adams, and
Adorjan asked very directly and succinctly [I paraphrase] if the top 100
players by rating in the world were all thrown together in a 13 round Swiss,
do you think the top ratings would win? With an additional note that maybe
the top 50 players in the world earn 95% of all prize money. It will be
interesting to read Adams' reply.

I wonder what would happen if a similar tournament was held in the USA? In
terms of interest, there would be so many underdogs with good performances,
it would make for good press. I do not agree with Eric that chess
sponsorship is a philanthropic activity, only that it is usually so - and
that is because, albeit USCF has a paid staff, money comes from media, and
media savvy sux!

Done right, just 1 hour of TV programming could fund the whole shebang.

This is not a fling at USCF, but it is a notice that it is a sinking pool
for ideas relating to sponsorship. If it could keep its [political] hands
out of the till, no reason why it couldn't still affiliate itself with such
a venture.

Phil Innes
Vermont