On Oct 13, 5:57*pm, "Chess One" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message

...
On Oct 13, 4:33 pm, Rob wrote:

This is so useless. You would find a hair to split on Yule Brynner's
head.

That is absolutely true, but remember that it was Susan Polgar, whom
you generally support, who started this debate by repeatedly attacking
the New York Times reporter over this issue.

**Attacking, says Sloan, by stating that they were wrong, as wrong as USCF,
Sloan - get it? Do you get that 10,000 posts about Susan Polgar equals [for
better or worse] an obsession on your part? And why would a justice not wish
to know this, whether you have a ligitmate argument or the usual trash?

Phil Innes

The New York Times was not wrong. The New York Times was correct. A
press release by Texas Tech University stated that the SPICE Cup held
in Lubbock Texas was the strongest chess tournament ever in the
history of the United States.

That was not true. There have been at least four tournaments that were
stronger.

Susan Polgar would do well to leave this issue alone. Every time she
brings it up, she goes that much deeper in the hole.

Sam Sloan

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:22:44 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:


Name 5-yr peak 1-1-1978

Spassky: 2680 2630
Larsen: ----- 2620
Portisch: ----- 2630
Unzicker: 2590 2525
Petrosian: 2680 2620
Najdorf: 2635 2525
Ivkov: 2570 2515
Donner: 2500 2490

**Therefore, even with these retro-ratings, and even with some players
assessed at their peak, the last 3 players seriously reduce the Category
rating to less tha XV, - these 8 players average 2,569 in '78 - and even
given these means the current SPICE XV stands as being correct as highest.

So what does "highest" mean?

The number of players in the rating pool is much larger now than in
1978, which makes it almost certain that many more players will be
rated above 2600 (or "x"). Unless the distribution changed in the 20
intervening years, this would be true even the current crop of GMs
played at a *lower* level of absolute strength than the GMs of 1978.

The fact is the competitors at Santa Monica represented a much greater
sampling of truly world-class players than did those in this year's
Spice Cup.

So, the often repeated claim of "highest rated" may be true (but
slightly misleading in implication), but the single claim of
"strongest" cannot be sustained.

On Oct 13, 6:51 pm, Mike Murray wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:22:44 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

Name 5-yr peak 1-1-1978
Spassky: 2680 2630
Larsen: ----- 2620
Portisch: ----- 2630
Unzicker: 2590 2525
Petrosian: 2680 2620
Najdorf: 2635 2525
Ivkov: 2570 2515
Donner: 2500 2490
**Therefore, even with these retro-ratings, and even with some players
assessed at their peak, the last 3 players seriously reduce the Category
rating to less tha XV, - these 8 players average 2,569 in '78 - and even
given these means the current SPICE XV stands as being correct as highest.

So what does "highest" mean?

The number of players in the rating pool is much larger now than in
1978, which makes it almost certain that many more players will be
rated above 2600 (or "x"). Unless the distribution changed in the 20
intervening years, this would be true even the current crop of GMs
played at a *lower* level of absolute strength than the GMs of 1978.

The fact is the competitors at Santa Monica represented a much greater
sampling of truly world-class players than did those in this year's
Spice Cup.

So, the often repeated claim of "highest rated" may be true (but
slightly misleading in implication), but the single claim of
"strongest" cannot be sustained.

The comparison is more extreme than that.

The higest rated player in the SPICE Cup was Harikrishna, rated 2659.
Second highest was Onischuk, rated 2644.

Harikrishna is ranked number 62 in the world. Onischuk is ranked
number 82 in the world.

None of the other players in the SPICE Cup were in the top 100 in the
world.

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

By comparison, ALL of the players in both the First and the Second
Piatigorsky Cup either were in the top 20 in the world or had been in
the top 20 in the world at some time in the past.

In short, ALL of the players in either of the two Piatagorsky Cups
were or had been "World Class" players. NONE of the players in the
SPICE Cup have ever been World Class players.

None of this should distract from the fact that Susan Polgar has
accomplished a great and beneficial thing by putting together this
tournament. However, she ruins it by attacking the New York Times
after the Times correctly pointed out that Zsuzsa's tournament was NOT
the strongest tournament ever played in the USA.

Sam Sloan

THE NEW YORK TIMES

McClain has repeatedly given space to Sloan's loony
lawsuits. He has quoted self-serving claims without seeking
any contrary opinions from sane people. Whether this is a
bad thing is a matter of opinion. If you adopt the tabloid approach
Larry Parr brought to CL, this might be considered a good thing --
the old "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy.Personally, I think it
shows poor
judgment on McClain's part but I admit that I'm influenced by my view
that
Sloan is a couple of evolutionary steps below pond scum. -- John
Hillery
(JKH) editor of The CJA Newsletter

I have an angry opinion of the New York Times.
By which I mean, one appreciates the many dozens of
fine stories and beautifully written articles that
appear inside its pages every year. The other side of
the coin is that rather than publishing all the news
fit to print, it too often publishes only the news
that fits and perverts its own function.

The anger enters because the NY Times, with its
resources and capacity to attract talent, could be so
much better than it is.

And then there are the depredations. The Times
has never returned or repudiated the Pulitzer it won
with Walter Duranty's reporting on the late USSR.
Duranty famously and infamously denied the existence
of the great Ukrainian famine, along with other crimes
of the Stalin regime. One also recollects Harrison
Salisbury's awful reportage from the Soviet Union in
the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The Times as an institution has too often trumped
the Times as a newspaper.

Having said all of the above, if John Hillery
wishes to attack Sam Sloan, there are more effective
lines of aggression than implying a relationship
between Sam and the premier journalistic organ of the
American establishment.

That's just practical polemics. There is too
much residual respect for even partially discredited
organs of the powers that be, and this respect
inevitably extends to Sam.

Much chess writing is simply boring. I disagree with
John Hillery that I brought a "tabloid approach" to Chess Life,
though I brought elements of such an approach.
There is a distinction.

And by the way, the supermarket tabloids are a
great place to catch up on the news that WILL BE in
the mainstream press months hence. The tabloids
reported freely on John Edwards' adultery, months
before the story finally broke in the mainstream
media. Sybil Edmonds' revelations on Israeli and
Turkish atomic espionage have appeared in American
tabloids AND twice on the front page of The Times
(London), but the story remains taboo on our TV
networks. The NY Times finally ran a short account of
the Edmonds testimony, but otherwise, this important
story appeared seldom in our printed and electronic
ether. Then there were the so-called "urban legends"
about blackhooded ninjas practicing war games in
American cities. Tabloids carried these stories for
years before the mainstream press finally reported on
what are claimed to be anti-terrorist exercises.

Accounts of Kellogg Brand Root building concentration
camps in the United States have been in a couple of
tabloids, and the French and British press have
published stories. The mainstream press still blacks
out the story, except for brief claims about centers
to house victims of natural disasters and a possible
influx of Mexicans in the event of an upheaval of some
kind to our south.

Tabloids and the Drudge Reports of this world
have their place. They occasionally force stories
into the open that otherwise have been spiked
throughout the United States.

Which brings up the next question: how does the
process of killing stories work?

I have no idea.

There appears to be no U.S. government mechanism
that can order hundreds of top American newspapers not
to print this or that story. Further, the idea that
thousands of editors are in phone contact daily about
what cannot be printed seems absurd.

What, then, is the precise censorship mechanism
that produces unanimity among thousands of editors and
writers across a vast continent about what cannot be published?

One possibility is a grand continental consensus
about what can ruin a journalistic career and lead to
dismissal. Editors and writers take their cue from
the NY Times and Washington Post about what is
permitted by noting stories appearing in major French
and British newspapers that never appear in the Times
and Post. Few have the guts to marginalize themselves
for the sake of telling not only the truth, but the whole truth.

This explanation, which posits a gutless
self-censorship, is attractive. Yet common sense
tells us that continental consensual censorship could
not produce such unanimity. Misunderstandings would
inevitably abound over what is not to be printed.

Still another answer, which contains watered
down Marxism, is that big corporations control what we
see, hear and read. Media consolidations, runs this
argument, have led to a press owned by great
corporations. True enough. But if one remembers
Marx, one also remembers his insistence that the
"contradictions" within the capitalist class
inevitably lead to disagreements and economic warfare.

The conclusion is that there is no love lost
among many of the great corporations. What one
group of companies considers unfriendly news, another
group of companies might welcome.

The idea that there are corporate officers in
phone contact thousands of times a week to coordinate
news coverage is as unworkable and fanciful as the
earlier notion that editors and writers were doing the
same thing.

So, then, what is my theory? I have no theory.
No conspiratorial explanation or combination of
socioeconomic explanations seems to suffice.

REPLY TO JOHN HILLERY

I offered you some advice that you
mischaracterize to an extent. The loose-bowelled,
freewheeling ways of a Sam Sloan are not particular to
his person, though he has some of those ways.

If you wish, change the name from Sam Sloan to,
say, Hunter S. Thompson or P. J. O'Rourke.

I have no great interest in you as a person per
se, but I do have sympathy for people who have devoted
themselves largely unsuccessfully to the world of chess.
(As an aside, some of your friends or acquaintances have
spoken about your personal life before.)

You need to ask yourself this question: why did
YOUR allies, for Pete's sake, never seriously promote
you for the job of Chess Life editor?

I immediately reject such explanations as
illiteracy or semi-literacy, ignorance of chess and
its lore, lack of intelligence or propensity for turf
wars. News judgment? There may have been some
legitimate concerns on this score, but those who might
have been natural supporters were likely never much
worried by this possible shortcoming.

My explanation, which is shared by some who are
far, far closer to you than I, is what I wrote above.
You need to open your ways, change your tone, though
without necessarily changing any fundamental ideas.

I don't insist that you accept what I wrote,
though you might usefully consider that there is a
measure, macro-or microscopic, of truth in it.

Yours, Larry Parr



Brian Lafferty wrote:
wrote:

wrote:
NY TIMES PIMPING FOR SAM!?

This almost certainly refers to McClain pimping for
your crackpot lawsuits, by printing your crazy allegations
without any serious fact- checking. Whatever one thinks of
Polgar and Truong, treating a vexatious litigant like you as a
reliable source shows very poor judgment on McClain's part.
--JKH (John Hillery) to Sam Sloan

If John Hillery has got it about right, then he
is essentially charging the NY Times with pimping for
Sam Sloan.

Many of us also would like to have the most powerful
newspaper on earth pimping for them.

Sam: I will be contacting you privately to
learn how you have wrapped the NY Times around your
Caissic digits. I'd really like to know.

We fully expect to hear that Warren Buffett and
Bill Gates will be seeking Sam's favor as they develop
their Foundation activities. And, to be sure, the
British royals may already be in contact with Sam on a
series of advisory efforts.

We thank Mr. Hillery for advising us on Sam's
breakthroughs into the haute monde.

We hear unsubstantiated rumors that Mr. Hillery
has the CJA Newsletter pimping for him. If true --
and we don't insist that the editor possesses such vast
influence -- then the man is also developing his
networking capabilities, though evidently, judging by
the man's own testimony, he lags far behind Sam.

Yours, Larry Parr




wrote:
samsloan wrote:
"It is sad to see a few people who have done virtually zero for chess
using the NY Times article to make wild attacks and insults toward
innocent people without even checking the facts.

"Best wishes,
"Susan Polgar
" http://www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
" http://www.SusanPolgar.com "

This almost certainly refers to McClain pimping for your crackpot
lawsuits, by printing your crazy allegations without any serious fact-
checking. Whatever one thinks of Polgar and Truong, treating a
vexatious litigant like you as a reliable source shows very poor
judgment on McClain's part.


Have you noticed how Susan Polgar claims that her SPICE Cup was the
strongest RR tournament in US history because the Second Piatagorsky
Cup, with Fischer, Spassky and Petrosian, was a double round robin
whereas her tournament was only a single round robin?

Sam Sloan

Can you document Polgar actually saying that, or is it another of your
hallucinations? The press release I saw described it as "the Highest
Rated 10-player International Round-Robin in U.S. History," which is
technically true -- FIDE didn't have a rating system in 1966. (It's
also weasel-worded PR flackery, but that's another matter.)


McClain has repeatedly given space to Sloan's loony lawsuits. He has
quoted self-serving claims without seeking any contrary opinions from
sane people. Whether this is a bad thing is a matter of opinion. If
you adopt the tabloid approach Larry Parr brought to CL, this might be
considered a good thing -- the old "if it bleeds it leads"
philosophy.Personally, I think it shows poor judgment on McClain's
part but I admit that I'm influenced by my view that Sloan is a couple
of evolutionary steps below pond scum. A proper chess columnist
(Robert Byrne, for example) would write about chess and ignore
vexatious litigation.

BTW, criticizing McClain is not equivalent to criticizing the NYT. In
fact I do have a low opinion of the NYT, but it's for reasons entirely
unrelated to chess and completely irrelevant here.

Mc Clain has covered newsworthy events in the world of chess. This
includes Sloan's action, and Polgar's law suit that was removed to
Federal court. When the USCF is sued for millions of dollars, that is
news. IIRC, the initial report on the Sloan suit was carried in the
business section of the Times. Chess, like it or not, is a business as
well as chess.

wrote:
THE NEW YORK TIMES

McClain has repeatedly given space to Sloan's loony
lawsuits. He has quoted self-serving claims without seeking
any contrary opinions from sane people. Whether this is a
bad thing is a matter of opinion. If you adopt the tabloid approach
Larry Parr brought to CL, this might be considered a good thing --
the old "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy.Personally, I think it
shows poor
judgment on McClain's part but I admit that I'm influenced by my view
that
Sloan is a couple of evolutionary steps below pond scum. -- John
Hillery
(JKH) editor of The CJA Newsletter

I have an angry opinion of the New York Times.
By which I mean, one appreciates the many dozens of
fine stories and beautifully written articles that
appear inside its pages every year. The other side of
the coin is that rather than publishing all the news
fit to print, it too often publishes only the news
that fits and perverts its own function.

The anger enters because the NY Times, with its
resources and capacity to attract talent, could be so
much better than it is.

And then there are the depredations. The Times
has never returned or repudiated the Pulitzer it won
with Walter Duranty's reporting on the late USSR.
Duranty famously and infamously denied the existence
of the great Ukrainian famine, along with other crimes
of the Stalin regime. One also recollects Harrison
Salisbury's awful reportage from the Soviet Union in
the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The Times as an institution has too often trumped
the Times as a newspaper.

Having said all of the above, if John Hillery
wishes to attack Sam Sloan, there are more effective
lines of aggression than implying a relationship
between Sam and the premier journalistic organ of the
American establishment.

That's just practical polemics. There is too
much residual respect for even partially discredited
organs of the powers that be, and this respect
inevitably extends to Sam.

Much chess writing is simply boring. I disagree with
John Hillery that I brought a "tabloid approach" to Chess Life,
though I brought elements of such an approach.
There is a distinction.

And by the way, the supermarket tabloids are a
great place to catch up on the news that WILL BE in
the mainstream press months hence. The tabloids
reported freely on John Edwards' adultery, months
before the story finally broke in the mainstream
media. Sybil Edmonds' revelations on Israeli and
Turkish atomic espionage have appeared in American
tabloids AND twice on the front page of The Times
(London), but the story remains taboo on our TV
networks. The NY Times finally ran a short account of
the Edmonds testimony, but otherwise, this important
story appeared seldom in our printed and electronic
ether. Then there were the so-called "urban legends"
about blackhooded ninjas practicing war games in
American cities. Tabloids carried these stories for
years before the mainstream press finally reported on
what are claimed to be anti-terrorist exercises.

Accounts of Kellogg Brand Root building concentration
camps in the United States have been in a couple of
tabloids, and the French and British press have
published stories. The mainstream press still blacks
out the story, except for brief claims about centers
to house victims of natural disasters and a possible
influx of Mexicans in the event of an upheaval of some
kind to our south.

Tabloids and the Drudge Reports of this world
have their place. They occasionally force stories
into the open that otherwise have been spiked
throughout the United States.

Which brings up the next question: how does the
process of killing stories work?

I have no idea.

There appears to be no U.S. government mechanism
that can order hundreds of top American newspapers not
to print this or that story. Further, the idea that
thousands of editors are in phone contact daily about
what cannot be printed seems absurd.

What, then, is the precise censorship mechanism
that produces unanimity among thousands of editors and
writers across a vast continent about what cannot be published?

One possibility is a grand continental consensus
about what can ruin a journalistic career and lead to
dismissal. Editors and writers take their cue from
the NY Times and Washington Post about what is
permitted by noting stories appearing in major French
and British newspapers that never appear in the Times
and Post. Few have the guts to marginalize themselves
for the sake of telling not only the truth, but the whole truth.

This explanation, which posits a gutless
self-censorship, is attractive. Yet common sense
tells us that continental consensual censorship could
not produce such unanimity. Misunderstandings would
inevitably abound over what is not to be printed.

Still another answer, which contains watered
down Marxism, is that big corporations control what we
see, hear and read. Media consolidations, runs this
argument, have led to a press owned by great
corporations. True enough. But if one remembers
Marx, one also remembers his insistence that the
"contradictions" within the capitalist class
inevitably lead to disagreements and economic warfare.

The conclusion is that there is no love lost
among many of the great corporations. What one
group of companies considers unfriendly news, another
group of companies might welcome.

The idea that there are corporate officers in
phone contact thousands of times a week to coordinate
news coverage is as unworkable and fanciful as the
earlier notion that editors and writers were doing the
same thing.

So, then, what is my theory? I have no theory.
No conspiratorial explanation or combination of
socioeconomic explanations seems to suffice.

REPLY TO JOHN HILLERY

I offered you some advice that you
mischaracterize to an extent. The loose-bowelled,
freewheeling ways of a Sam Sloan are not particular to
his person, though he has some of those ways.

If you wish, change the name from Sam Sloan to,
say, Hunter S. Thompson or P. J. O'Rourke.

I have no great interest in you as a person per
se, but I do have sympathy for people who have devoted
themselves largely unsuccessfully to the world of chess.
(As an aside, some of your friends or acquaintances have
spoken about your personal life before.)

You need to ask yourself this question: why did
YOUR allies, for Pete's sake, never seriously promote
you for the job of Chess Life editor?

I immediately reject such explanations as
illiteracy or semi-literacy, ignorance of chess and
its lore, lack of intelligence or propensity for turf
wars. News judgment? There may have been some
legitimate concerns on this score, but those who might
have been natural supporters were likely never much
worried by this possible shortcoming.

My explanation, which is shared by some who are
far, far closer to you than I, is what I wrote above.
You need to open your ways, change your tone, though
without necessarily changing any fundamental ideas.

I don't insist that you accept what I wrote,
though you might usefully consider that there is a
measure, macro-or microscopic, of truth in it.

Yours, Larry Parr



Brian Lafferty wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
NY TIMES PIMPING FOR SAM!?

This almost certainly refers to McClain pimping for
your crackpot lawsuits, by printing your crazy allegations
without any serious fact- checking. Whatever one thinks of
Polgar and Truong, treating a vexatious litigant like you as a
reliable source shows very poor judgment on McClain's part.
--JKH (John Hillery) to Sam Sloan

If John Hillery has got it about right, then he
is essentially charging the NY Times with pimping for
Sam Sloan.

Many of us also would like to have the most powerful
newspaper on earth pimping for them.

Sam: I will be contacting you privately to
learn how you have wrapped the NY Times around your
Caissic digits. I'd really like to know.

We fully expect to hear that Warren Buffett and
Bill Gates will be seeking Sam's favor as they develop
their Foundation activities. And, to be sure, the
British royals may already be in contact with Sam on a
series of advisory efforts.

We thank Mr. Hillery for advising us on Sam's
breakthroughs into the haute monde.

We hear unsubstantiated rumors that Mr. Hillery
has the CJA Newsletter pimping for him. If true --
and we don't insist that the editor possesses such vast
influence -- then the man is also developing his
networking capabilities, though evidently, judging by
the man's own testimony, he lags far behind Sam.

Yours, Larry Parr

Take a look at the book, The Fourth Reich.





wrote:
samsloan wrote:
"It is sad to see a few people who have done virtually zero for chess
using the NY Times article to make wild attacks and insults toward
innocent people without even checking the facts.

"Best wishes,
"Susan Polgar
" http://www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
" http://www.SusanPolgar.com "
This almost certainly refers to McClain pimping for your crackpot
lawsuits, by printing your crazy allegations without any serious fact-
checking. Whatever one thinks of Polgar and Truong, treating a
vexatious litigant like you as a reliable source shows very poor
judgment on McClain's part.


Have you noticed how Susan Polgar claims that her SPICE Cup was the
strongest RR tournament in US history because the Second Piatagorsky
Cup, with Fischer, Spassky and Petrosian, was a double round robin
whereas her tournament was only a single round robin?

Sam Sloan
Can you document Polgar actually saying that, or is it another of your
hallucinations? The press release I saw described it as "the Highest
Rated 10-player International Round-Robin in U.S. History," which is
technically true -- FIDE didn't have a rating system in 1966. (It's
also weasel-worded PR flackery, but that's another matter.)

McClain has repeatedly given space to Sloan's loony lawsuits. He has
quoted self-serving claims without seeking any contrary opinions from
sane people. Whether this is a bad thing is a matter of opinion. If
you adopt the tabloid approach Larry Parr brought to CL, this might be
considered a good thing -- the old "if it bleeds it leads"
philosophy.Personally, I think it shows poor judgment on McClain's
part but I admit that I'm influenced by my view that Sloan is a couple
of evolutionary steps below pond scum. A proper chess columnist
(Robert Byrne, for example) would write about chess and ignore
vexatious litigation.

BTW, criticizing McClain is not equivalent to criticizing the NYT. In
fact I do have a low opinion of the NYT, but it's for reasons entirely
unrelated to chess and completely irrelevant here.
Mc Clain has covered newsworthy events in the world of chess. This
includes Sloan's action, and Polgar's law suit that was removed to
Federal court. When the USCF is sued for millions of dollars, that is
news. IIRC, the initial report on the Sloan suit was carried in the
business section of the Times. Chess, like it or not, is a business as
well as chess.

"samsloan" wrote in message
...
On Oct 13, 6:51 pm, Mike Murray wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:22:44 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

Name 5-yr peak 1-1-1978
Spassky: 2680 2630
Larsen: ----- 2620
Portisch: ----- 2630
Unzicker: 2590 2525
Petrosian: 2680 2620
Najdorf: 2635 2525
Ivkov: 2570 2515
Donner: 2500 2490
**Therefore, even with these retro-ratings, and even with some players
assessed at their peak, the last 3 players seriously reduce the Category
rating to less tha XV, - these 8 players average 2,569 in '78 - and
even
given these means the current SPICE XV stands as being correct as
highest.

So what does "highest" mean?

The number of players in the rating pool is much larger now than in
1978, which makes it almost certain that many more players will be
rated above 2600 (or "x"). Unless the distribution changed in the 20
intervening years, this would be true even the current crop of GMs
played at a *lower* level of absolute strength than the GMs of 1978.

The fact is the competitors at Santa Monica represented a much greater
sampling of truly world-class players than did those in this year's
Spice Cup.

So, the often repeated claim of "highest rated" may be true (but
slightly misleading in implication), but the single claim of
"strongest" cannot be sustained.

The comparison is more extreme than that.

The comparison of what? When a subject begins as the strongest tournament
*category*, then this means the average of the players' ratings which
determine the tournament level.

Here we have the Sloan switching topics to individual ratings of /some/ of
the players - and a little below he switches yet again to not-ratings, but
world positions - either current ones or

"...at some time in the past".

I can only assume that the NY Times are reading the Sloan somewhere and not
the Polgar everywhere else, or in fact, asking USCF people any questions
about what they report - or contain anyone with knowledge of what a
tournament is on their staff.

In which case why not compare the SPICE event with Lone Pine or even
Cambridge Springs since what is being compared continuously shifts even to
"...some time in the past", and now its about 'world class players' not
category of tournament.

Naturally, Sam Sloan does not think he is attacking anything here, except
the literal truth - its other people who are doing the attacking, the people
who merely say what a Category rating is - and to which Sam Sloan is
entirely wrong.

The Sloan has stated that he is not obsessed by Susan Polgar, despite the
evidence of his 10,00 posts about her - I think its therfore equitable to
grant him that he is not obssessed with being correct either.

The very strange thing here is that he submitted his 'argument' to a justice
in order that that the person should compare what he says with what who he
accuses says.


Phil Innes

The higest rated player in the SPICE Cup was Harikrishna, rated 2659.
Second highest was Onischuk, rated 2644.

Harikrishna is ranked number 62 in the world. Onischuk is ranked
number 82 in the world.

None of the other players in the SPICE Cup were in the top 100 in the
world.

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

By comparison, ALL of the players in both the First and the Second
Piatigorsky Cup either were in the top 20 in the world or had been in
the top 20 in the world at some time in the past.

In short, ALL of the players in either of the two Piatagorsky Cups
were or had been "World Class" players. NONE of the players in the
SPICE Cup have ever been World Class players.

None of this should distract from the fact that Susan Polgar has
accomplished a great and beneficial thing by putting together this
tournament. However, she ruins it by attacking the New York Times
after the Times correctly pointed out that Zsuzsa's tournament was NOT
the strongest tournament ever played in the USA.

Sam Sloan

On Oct 14, 11:19*am, "Chess One" wrote:

The comparison of what? When a subject begins as the strongest tournament
*category*, then this means the average of the players' ratings which
determine the tournament level.

Here we have the Sloan switching topics to individual ratings of /some/ of
the players - and a little below he switches yet again to not-ratings, but
world positions - either current ones or

* * "...at some time in the past".

I can only assume that the NY Times are reading the Sloan somewhere and not
the Polgar everywhere else, or in fact, asking USCF people any questions
about what they report - or contain anyone with knowledge of what a
tournament is on their staff.

In which case why not compare the SPICE event with Lone Pine or even
Cambridge Springs since what is being compared continuously shifts even to
"...some time in the past", and now its about 'world class players' not
category of tournament.

Naturally, Sam Sloan does not think he is attacking anything here, except
the literal truth - its other people who are doing the attacking, the people
who merely say what a Category rating is - and to which Sam Sloan is
entirely wrong.

The Sloan has stated that he is not obsessed by Susan Polgar, despite the
evidence of his 10,00 posts about her - I think its therfore equitable to
grant him that he is not obssessed with being correct either.

The very strange thing here is that he submitted his 'argument' to a justice
in order that that the person should compare what he says with what who he
accuses says.

Phil Innes

The press release issued by Texas Tech University stated:

"Texas Tech University’s Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence
announced Thursday it has assembled the strongest field of chess
grandmasters in U.S. round-robin history for its 2008 SPICE Cup
International Invitational Tournament."

This statement was not true as there have been at least four
tournaments stronger than that.

Now, Susan Polgar and Phil Innes are relentlessly attacking the New
York Times for making this true statement.

Probably next time the New York Times and other major media will
simply no longer report on any event involving Susan Polgar.

Sam Sloan

"samsloan" wrote in message
...
On Oct 13, 5:57 pm, "Chess One" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message

...
On Oct 13, 4:33 pm, Rob wrote:

This is so useless. You would find a hair to split on Yule Brynner's
head.

That is absolutely true, but remember that it was Susan Polgar, whom
you generally support, who started this debate by repeatedly attacking
the New York Times reporter over this issue.

**Attacking, says Sloan, by stating that they were wrong, as wrong as
USCF,
Sloan - get it? Do you get that 10,000 posts about Susan Polgar equals
[for
better or worse] an obsession on your part? And why would a justice not
wish
to know this, whether you have a ligitmate argument or the usual trash?

Phil Innes

The New York Times was not wrong. The New York Times was correct. A
press release by Texas Tech University stated that the SPICE Cup held
in Lubbock Texas was the strongest chess tournament ever in the
history of the United States.

======

But you Sam Sloan understand the difference between a source and a report by
others, no? Or do you wish to simply pretend you do not? And further pretend
there is no difference?

If you don't understand [but of course you do - you cheat!], then complain
about Texas Tech, to NY Times and USCF - but do not continue as you do here
to talk of what Susan Polgar wrote in the first place about her tournament,
where you use such terms as 'attack' when she counters innacuracies, unless
you wish to be perceived as a petty idiotic obsessed McCathyite fool, whom
no-one whatsoever thinks has any point - and especially since you represent
your views to a Justice as if you knew something was wrong, when you know
damn well that it was not, and besides your view is singular of all people.

And stop pretending you are discussing anything, Sloan, instead of blaming
someone as usual - and falsely too! That is your measure Sloan, see how your
supporters avoid your behavior! but suggest it was noble, or some such rot.

And I think that if you are buoyed by such as Larry Parr's response to John
Hillery, it is foolish to support this latest lost cause excited merely to
attempt to embarass other people, but hopeless wrong and evidently
MALICIOUS.

Larr Parr should be ashamed of his response to Hillery [no friend of mine],
since the thing [Sloanism, which is undifferentiated to me from what
McCarthy did] he supports here is the very thing that will bring about the
demise of USCF.

Larry Parr cannot argue both sides of it; the romantic villain who is NOT
like anyone he mentions but more like McCarthy in his acusations, someone he
sides with but who possess no dimension at all other than of appearance.
That his opinions are so slight is hardly worth the contest, and yet that is
the current political game surrounding USCF - as if Larry Parr thought the
Sloan could actually remedy what was wrong with USCF [the Sloan who never
carried a single motion before the board except one proforma 'hurray' for a
volunteer].

Soviet people also thought romantic heros could save them. This is
imagination bought at great price, but paid by others! Here the serious
price remains the very existence of USCF itself.

I submit my frank and open criticism of Larry Parr in this way since we both
actually want to save USCF from destruction more than any other writers
here, and he more than me. My hostility to this indiescriminate support of
the Sloan is the same as that against the Ollie North defence of the
President:

Officers take their oath in defence of the people of the country, not their
leader, nor their own ego. Sloan is, in my opinion, incapable of even
understanding my first reference to where loyalty is due.

Phil Innes