Chessdon goes zero for zero for 10 on his arguments against TMB's arguments
for moving to Paris!!


1) Sam Sloan is thousands of miles away, and won't be able to make all the
board meetings.

Wrong - Sam consistently shows up at important meetings wherever they are.
Didn'tyou see the Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman. Well Sam is our Dustin
Hoffman.

WRONG! - Sam is not a mathematical savant, nor does he have a brother with a
classic Buick. Even if he did, Buick's don't float.

2) Ditto Don Schultz.

Wrong - My wife loves Paris. We lived there five years. We would be there.

WRONG! - Once, maybe. But then we'd get you on the no-fly list and that
would be that.

3) The French suck at chess, so our players will actually look good for a
change.

Wrong - The French are very good at chess. Spassky lives outside Paris and
is a
solid first board for them. Than there is GM Joel Lautier and many ohers.
The
talent in Crossville, Liberty and even Lindborg pales compared to that in
Paris.

WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don. You're
reaching.

4) Beatriz Marinello will get her free health care, so she can stop making
a
shameless run on the ED position.

Wrong - Beatriz would not be eligible for free health care as she is a
volunteer thus not eligible for most French Medical benefits.

WRONG! You get free health care no matter who you are. Break your arm on
vacation, they fix it for free--happened to a friend of mine.

5) We can laugh about Yasser Seirawan and his ideas about chess
organizations from a safe distance.

Wrong - Paris is a comfortable 4 hour train ride from Yasser's home in
Amsterdam.

WRONG! There's no such thing as a "comfortable 4 hour train ride" and Yaz is
too stoked on hashish to make the trip anyway.

6) Bill Goichberg won't be able to work for free anymore, because the
commute would be a killer.

Wrong - This is the age of the computer and the Internet. Bill would
certainly
continue his valuable volunteer contributions.

WRONG! Bill Goichberg can't operate a computer. Everyone knows that.

7) Kalev Pehme's distorted command of English can become an even-more
distorted command of French.

Wrong - Your mistaking an advantage for a disadvantage.

WRONG! Kalev's drooling sexism will play well with franco sensibilities.

8) Instead of watching crummy state organizations like the ICA flame-out,
we
can cheer the success of regional chess bodies like the AEP (Association
d'Echecs Provence).

Wrong - The AEP is not in Paris but rather Southern France..

SO WHAT -- the parallel remains. Hello?

9) Better lunchtime eats in Paris than in New Windsor by a country mile.

Wrong - The McaDonalds, Burger Kings and Wendy's now dominate Paris.

WRONG! Maybe for you, in your tourist bermudas and flip-flops, Don.

10) Nude beaches galore -- and you won't have to swim at one named for some
peevish muckraker.

Wrong - Get a map, Paris is not by the beach.

SO?? The beaches are a comfortable 4 hour train ride away!!

WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don. You're
reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

On 22 Oct 2004 07:32:26 -0700, (Roger) wrote:

WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don. You're
reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

Good post. Thank you.

Ok, the only one that COUNTS.

Nitpickers. I'm sure you pulled that list right off the top of your head, eh
Rog? With the exception of Etienne Bacrot, these guys could all be ReMax
agents for all I know.



"Sam Sloan" wrote in message
...
On 22 Oct 2004 07:32:26 -0700, (Roger) wrote:

WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don.
You're
reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

Good post. Thank you.

Rip van Winkle. When you went to sleep in the 1970's, Spassky was
still playing and was the leading player of France. Take a look at
how those ReMax agents are doing in the Olympiad. In case you are
wondering, it's 2004.

"The Masked Bishop" wrote in message .com...
Ok, the only one that COUNTS.

Nitpickers. I'm sure you pulled that list right off the top of your head, eh
Rog? With the exception of Etienne Bacrot, these guys could all be ReMax
agents for all I know.



"Sam Sloan" wrote in message
...
On 22 Oct 2004 07:32:26 -0700, (Roger) wrote:

WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don.
You're
reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

Good post. Thank you.

(Roger) wrote in
message om...
'The Masked Bishop' wrote (to Don Schultz):
WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don.
You're reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

According to the official FIDE website, France has 26 GMs.
(But Chernuschevich--FIDE 2527--is still listed as an IM, not a GM.)

In the FIDE list of 'Country rank by average rating of top 10 players',
France is fourth (1 Russia; 2 Ukraine; 3 Hungary), ahead of the United States.

--Nick

On 24 Oct 2004 07:09:16 -0700, (Nick) wrote:

(Roger) wrote in
message om...
'The Masked Bishop' wrote (to Don Schultz):
WRONG! Spassky stinks, and Lautier is the ONLY GM in France, Don.
You're reaching.

I suspect that Grandmasters Apicella, Bacrot, Bauer, Chernuschevich,
Degraeve, Dorfman, Fontaine, Fressinet, Kosten, Marciano, Nataf,
Relange, Renet, Sokolov, Tkachiev and Vaisser would strongly disagree
with you on this point.

According to the official FIDE website, France has 26 GMs.
(But Chernuschevich--FIDE 2527--is still listed as an IM, not a GM.)

In the FIDE list of 'Country rank by average rating of top 10 players',
France is fourth (1 Russia; 2 Ukraine; 3 Hungary), ahead of the United States.

--Nick

Amazing, because France used to be one of the weakest chess playing
countries in the world. The only grandmasters there were Rossolimo and
later Spassky, both transplanted Russians. Can anybody tell us who was
the first French born Grandmaster and what was his name? It must have
been in the 1980s.

Sam Sloan

The only grandmasters there were Rossolimo and
later Spassky, both transplanted Russians.

Rossolimo was Russian? With the name, I would assume Italian.

On 24 Oct 2004 15:26:53 GMT, OTHERE (Fifiela) wrote:

The only grandmasters there were Rossolimo and
later Spassky, both transplanted Russians.

Rossolimo was Russian? With the name, I would assume Italian.

Yes. Rossolimo was from Kiev. Rossolimo was not his original name. His
original name was something like Verukov. He changed it to Rossolimo
in order to become a citizen of France.

Good question, though. Can somebody tell us what was the original name
at birth of Nicholas Rossolimo?

Sam Sloan

Subject: Chessdon goes Zero for Zero for Ten!

On 24 October 2004 (Sam Sloan) wrote in
Message-id:

On 24 Oct 2004 15:26:53 GMT, OTHERE (Fifiela) wrote:

The only grandmasters there were Rossolimo and
later Spassky, both transplanted Russians.

Rossolimo was Russian? With the name, I would assume Italian.

Yes. Rossolimo was from Kiev. Rossolimo was not his original name. His
original name was something like Verukov. He changed it to Rossolimo
in order to become a citizen of France.

Good question, though. Can somebody tell us what was the original name
at birth of Nicholas Rossolimo?

Sam Sloan


Rossolimo's father was Greek and his mother was Russian. He grew up in Kiev,
where he was born in 1910. He immigrated to Paris with his mother in 1929, with
his father immigrating to the United States several years before that. He
became a French citizen. In 1953 he joined his father in the U.S. and did odd
jobs, such as driving a taxi cab - a la Sam Sloan - giving chess lessons and
making money from the sales of a record of Russian folk songs. He became a
naturalized U.S. citizen. When he won the 1955 U.S. Open in Long Beach, Calif.,
on tiebreak points, his prize was a Buick automobile. Within 24 hours of
winning the tournament, he had sold the car to pay his fare back to France,
which he considered his only hope of continuing his professional chess career.
However, when the possibilty existed that that his son might be drafted into
the French army and could be sent to the Algerian front, Nick changed his mind
and decided to stay in the United States. He did, however, live later at
various times in France - only to return to the United States. He eventually
opened up Rossolimo's Chess Studio at 191 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village in
New York.[I might be wrong but I think that the studio later moved to Thompson
Street in NYC.] Rossolimo was a colorful character - both on and off the board.
He held a brown belt in judo and was for a time a chess reporter for Radio
Liberty. He died in late July 1975 after someone found him with head injuries
at the bottom of a flight of stairs. It is unlikely that his original name was
"something like Verukov" since his father was Greek. Chances are that his real
name was Rossolimopoulos or some Hellenic name like that.

George Mirijanian