PAUL TRUONG:
Happy To Be A USCF Member
BY RANDALL HOUGH
Assistant Editor, Chess Life

Paul Truong is a survivor. And although he would like to say that his
love for chess helped to sustain him during two hellish weeks in early
1979 aboard a crowded, leaky, wooden refugee boat -- it would be
untrue.

For Paul, who was born in Saigon on June 2, 1965, and whose Vietnamese
name is Hoainhan, found that survival pushed everything else to the
back of [his] mind." Still, chess does play an important role in the
life of this energetic, young Vietnamese-American.

Paul learned the moves in 1971 at age six from USCF master Kenneth
Clayton, who was then working in Vietnam as a computer adviser. Paul
and his father Tien, who spoke good English, used to visit a local
sports club with a large swimming pool, billiards tables, and whatnot.
But it was chess which attracted the lad. Recalls Clayton of the young
boy: '`He was always attentive, retained what I taught him, possessed
good nerves and evaluated positions objectively. I recall one game
against a strong player, whom Paul defeated in an ending in which he
used a Bishop to trap his opponent's Knight on the run of the board.
Playing virtually a piece up, he just walked in with the King. He had
seen a similar maneuver in one of my games."

At age eight, Paul won the closest thing that Vietnam had to a
national championship by finishing behind only Clayton in a tournament
at the sports club. In our game," Clayton remembers, I set some nice
traps that he saw. I was finally able to wear him down positionally,
but it was a real struggle." Clayton estimates that the eight-year-
olds strength was in the class "A" range.

UNHAPPY DAYS
Tire happy times didn't last. The South Vietnamese government fell to
the Communists in early 1975, and Tien Truong, a former employee of
the United States government, faced hard times for himself and for his
family. And in 1979, when the Communists began to persecute Vietnamese
citizens of Chinese ancestry, the Truongs formulated a plan to leave.
Acquiring false identification papers and greasing the palms of a few
officials, Tien and Paul managed to leave. "We wanted the freedom a
human being deserves," says Paul, "and my father was concerned about
his children's futures." But Paul's mother, Yeh, and a younger
brother, who was too young to make the perilous journey through the
South China Sea, had to remain behind.

The following six weeks were the most memorable period of Paul's life.
Over 600 passengers were crammed into a 150-foot wooden vessel, which
had to return to Vietnam for repairs after several days at sea. When
the boat again left Vietnam, after payment by the passengers of
additional bribes, it was boarded by pirates on the second day out.
And the refugees found themselves without much of their food, medical
supplies, and valuables. Women were raped, and the boat was virtually
torn apart as the pirates searched for jewelry.

There were additional boardings, and the boat drifted for days beneath
the tropical sun - a vessel of misery filled with terrorized human
beings. And then the refugees were spotted by an American oil tanker.

Tien Truong persuaded the tanker's captain to help the passengers
reach the East Coast of Malaysia, where they spent weeks in a teeming,
island refugee camp before setting out in a new boat. On this second
voyage, people began to die of hunger and thirst before reaching the
coast of Indonesian Sumatra ... where they were again turned away.

In despair the passengers began to throw overboard the dead bodies in
order to lighten the boat's load. And suddenly, the Indonesian
authorities took pity on these unwanted refugees, allowing them
ashore. Whereupon. Tien and Paul spent six months in yet another camp.
On December 1, 1979, Tien and Paul arrived in the United States,
sponsored by an aunt who lived in New Jersey.

PRAYERS, HARD WORK, SAVING

Paul started school in the ninth grade in Washington Township, New
Jersey finding that he had plenty of catching up to do. Tien looked
for and eventually found a job with Versa a valve manufacturer in
Paramus, New Jersey. Where he now works as a control manager. After
school, Paul also worked. He and his father offered and they saved
money to pay for the freedom of his mother and younger brother And
years later - in August 1985 - they to arrived in America.

School, money scrimping, hard work - none these things kept Paul away
from his old love of chess. But his rust was apparent in early
American tournaments, and his first rating was only in the 1600s.
However, he improved rapidly thanks in significant measure, to support
from the North New Jersey chess community. At the 1981 New York State
Championship, he achieved a USCF master's rating, which he has kept
ever since.

Thus far in his chess life, Paul's most memorable competitive
experiences (aside from playing for the Collins Kids against Iceland
in 1983) occurred in the summer of 1984 when he qualified for the U.S.
Junior closed (in which he finished a disappointing eleventh in a
twelve-player field despite defeating tournament favorite Maxim Dlugy)
and when he participated in Gary Kasparov's Starwars Simul" - a set of
ten game played by Kasparov in London against British and U.S. juniors
with the Americans in New York playing via a telecommunications
hookup. Paul went astray in a complex middlegame, but the then world
championship contender later said that Paul played better than any of
his compatriots.

In a Sicilian Defense, Paul Truong sacks a Rook for White's Knight on
c3. That's the sort of sharp trading he had to practice to survive a
perilous journey to the United States.

By popular demand, I have scanned the original article in Chess Life
and posted it to my website:

Here it is:

http://www.samsloan.com/truong-chess-life.pdf

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:46:01 -0700, samsloan
wrote:

By popular demand, I have scanned the original article in Chess Life
and posted it to my website:

Here it is:

http://www.samsloan.com/truong-chess-life.pdf


By popular demand?????? Who??????? No one here asked for it that's
for sure.

EZoto

Oh, lets do this. Let's post everything Sam Sloan has
written since 1986 and everything he has done that might
look a little 'funny'.

****tard.

"samsloan" wrote in message
oups.com...
By popular demand, I have scanned the original article in Chess Life
and posted it to my website:

Here it is:

http://www.samsloan.com/truong-chess-life.pdf

Chess Freak wrote:

Oh, lets do this. Let's post everything Sam Sloan has
written since 1986 and everything he has done that might
look a little 'funny'.

****tard.

"samsloan" wrote in message
oups.com...

By popular demand, I have scanned the original article in Chess Life
and posted it to my website:

Here it is:

http://www.samsloan.com/truong-chess-life.pdf




Are computers unbeatable yet?

"Chess Freak" Oh, lets do this. Let's post everything Sam Sloan has
written since 1986 and everything he has done that might look a little
'funny'.


Since you have dedicated your life to the homosexual obsessive stalking of
Sam Sloan, perhaps you should host your own samsloanfag website and post all
his messages for the past 20 years and any other crap that you think is
pertinent to yourself.

"Smegmato" wrote in message
...
"Chess Freak" Oh, lets do this. Let's post everything Sam Sloan has
written since 1986 and everything he has done that might look a little
'funny'.


Since you have dedicated your life to the homosexual obsessive stalking of
Sam Sloan, perhaps you should host your own samsloanfag website and post
all
his messages for the past 20 years and any other crap that you think is
pertinent to yourself.


What's that I hear? Oh, it's your mother calling, smegmato, she wants
you to run down to the 7-11 and pick up another 6-pack.
**** you, you Sloan Lover.

"Chess Freak" **** you, you Sloan Lover.


Why are you obsessed? Get help. There are medications that can give your
life the appearance of normality.

"Smegmato" wrote in message
...
"Chess Freak" **** you, you Sloan Lover.


Why are you obsessed? Get help. There are medications that can give your
life the appearance of normality.


What are you talking about? I'm not obsessed.

"Chess Freak" What are you talking about? I'm not obsessed.


Don't mention Sam Sloan for one year. Take the name out of your brain. Stop
thinking about Sloan. Prove that you are not an obsessed homo stalker. Or
homo-obsessed stalker. Or stalker obsessed with homos. Is Sloan gay? If not,
then why are you stalking him?