This is erroneous, Bill. AF4C has run five US Championships in the last
seven years - three in Seattle (2000-2003) and two in San Diego (2004
and 2006). The Seattle events were organized by Yvette-Nagel Seirawan
(Yasser's wife), who is an experienced event organizer.

I travelled to San Diego a number of times in 2004 to participate in
local organizing committee meetings; that year, the event was organized
by USCF's own Diane Reese for AF4C, under an arrangement Erik Anderson
made to hire her that you must also have approved as USCF ED at the
time.

The 2006 event in San Diego was organized by the folks at the NTC
Foundation (AF4C's local partner), with support by various people
including Robert Tanner, who directed.

If Mr. Henderson was responsible for anything at all, I can imagine
only three things:

Probably he is the one who came up with the idea of splitting the 64
players into two groups and deciding the US Championship with a pair of
rapid games.

Certainly, he was the paid PR man who didn't get much press for the
event (see the threads in this Forum started by Petrel about this).

And perhaps he is the one who made the $20,000+ error in making up the
prize list, leading to underpaying the "guaranteed" prizes of 60 of the
64 players.

And he personally tried to turn Gata Kamsky away from being able to
play in 2004 in San Diego.

Bill, I have organized and directed over 100 chess tournaments, and you
must be well over a thousand. Most of these could be independently
confirmed by readers here, if anyone wanted to do so.

It would be interesting to learn whether Mr. Henderson has organized
chess events back in his native Scotland or elsewhere. Here in the US,
he is known as the guy AF4C keeps hiring to do their press, and he has
had chess columns for many years under the moniker "The Scotsman". He
also sells chess photos, some of which appear in Chess Life. He
certainly was not the principal organizer of the Championship when he
worked for AF4C.
_________________
Hal Bogner

http://www.ChessMagnetSchool.com