samsloan wrote:
On Nov 14, 4:25 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message

oups.com...



On Nov 14, 6:16 am, "Chess One" wrote:
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?

Eric Johnson

Ben Finegold is rated 2611 and is now the number 18 player in the USA.
When the invitations went out earlier this year he was number 16. (He
did not lose rating points. Two players edged him out by one or two
rating points.)

Most of us (with the notable exception of Bill Goichberg) agree that
invitations to the US Championship should be based on objective
criteria. The official rule passed by the USCF Executive Board some
years ago is that invitations to the US Championship are based on a
weighted average between the player's USCF Rating and FIDE ratings.

However, this year the official USCF rule was ignored and substituted
in its place was the Goichberg Rule which provides that Goichberg
decides which tournaments organized by Goichberg and Goichberg allies
and fellow board members such as Randy Hough are invited to play in
the US Championship.

Qualifying by doing well in tournaments is no less "objective" than using
ratings. Your description of what happened does not make it
sound that Finegold was unfairly excluded.

Tournaments are less subject to being manipulated than ratings, so it
makes sense that they be used to determine the marginal players.

The claim that Goichberg misused the qualifying process to boost
his own tournaments is just typical unsubstantiated Sloan nonsense.

Why is that?

Take a look at the list of qualifying tournaments.

Half were Goichberg tournaments.

The remainder were tournaments by political allies such as the
American Open, a minor league tournament organized by his friend and
political ally Randy Hough, and national tournaments Goichberg could
not ignore, including the US Open, the National Open, the US Junior
and the US Senior.

Sam Sloan

False. Since you've been corrected on this several times, lie. There
were 11 "open" qualifiers. Four were CCA tournaments.

On Nov 14, 5:47 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message

ups.com...



On Nov 14, 4:25 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message

groups.com...

On Nov 14, 6:16 am, "Chess One" wrote:
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?

Eric Johnson

Ben Finegold is rated 2611 and is now the number 18 player in the USA.
When the invitations went out earlier this year he was number 16. (He
did not lose rating points. Two players edged him out by one or two
rating points.)

Most of us (with the notable exception of Bill Goichberg) agree that
invitations to the US Championship should be based on objective
criteria. The official rule passed by the USCF Executive Board some
years ago is that invitations to the US Championship are based on a
weighted average between the player's USCF Rating and FIDE ratings.

However, this year the official USCF rule was ignored and substituted
in its place was the Goichberg Rule which provides that Goichberg
decides which tournaments organized by Goichberg and Goichberg allies
and fellow board members such as Randy Hough are invited to play in
the US Championship.

Qualifying by doing well in tournaments is no less "objective" than using
ratings. Your description of what happened does not make it
sound that Finegold was unfairly excluded.

Tournaments are less subject to being manipulated than ratings, so it
makes sense that they be used to determine the marginal players.

The claim that Goichberg misused the qualifying process to boost
his own tournaments is just typical unsubstantiated Sloan nonsense.

Why is that?

Take a look at the list of qualifying tournaments.

Half were Goichberg tournaments.

Goichberg runs some tournaments that are prestigious and draw
top competition, doesn't he? Why shouldn't they be qualifiers?

Sam Sloan hates Bill Goichberg and is always looking for ways to
attack him. Oh wait, that's what Sam Sloan said about me half a decade
ago!

On Nov 14, 5:47 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message


Take a look at the list of qualifying tournaments.

Half were Goichberg tournaments.

Goichberg runs some tournaments that are prestigious and draw
top competition, doesn't he? Why shouldn't they be qualifiers?

The remainder were tournaments by political allies such as the
American Open, a minor league tournament organized by his friend and
political ally Randy Hough, and national tournaments Goichberg could
not ignore, including the US Open, the National Open, the US Junior
and the US Senior.

You are confusing the possibility of misuse with actual misuse. Do you
believe that there were better tournaments to use? If so, make that case.

Before you were suggesting that players should have been able to qualify
by not playing at all, just by sitting on a marginal rating. That seems clearly
much worse than the tournaments used.

Under the official USCF rules still in force, qualification to the US
Championship is by rating plus there is an activity requirement.

If Bill Goichberg does not like those rules, he should move to change
them and not merely ignore them.

Sam Sloan

samsloan wrote:
On Nov 14, 5:47 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message


Take a look at the list of qualifying tournaments.

Half were Goichberg tournaments.

Goichberg runs some tournaments that are prestigious and draw
top competition, doesn't he? Why shouldn't they be qualifiers?

The remainder were tournaments by political allies such as the
American Open, a minor league tournament organized by his friend and
political ally Randy Hough, and national tournaments Goichberg could
not ignore, including the US Open, the National Open, the US Junior
and the US Senior.

You are confusing the possibility of misuse with actual misuse. Do you
believe that there were better tournaments to use? If so, make that case.

Before you were suggesting that players should have been able to qualify
by not playing at all, just by sitting on a marginal rating. That seems clearly
much worse than the tournaments used.

Under the official USCF rules still in force, qualification to the US
Championship is by rating plus there is an activity requirement.

If Bill Goichberg does not like those rules, he should move to change
them and not merely ignore them.

Sam Sloan


Sam, are you a moron or just an amazingly lifelike imitation? Those
rules were changed years ago at the behest of AF4C. This was during
the Redman administration, and you'll have a hard time arguing that he
was acting at Goichberg's behest.

"samsloan" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Nov 14, 5:47 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
"samsloan" wrote in message


Take a look at the list of qualifying tournaments.

Half were Goichberg tournaments.

Goichberg runs some tournaments that are prestigious and draw
top competition, doesn't he? Why shouldn't they be qualifiers?

The remainder were tournaments by political allies such as the
American Open, a minor league tournament organized by his friend and
political ally Randy Hough, and national tournaments Goichberg could
not ignore, including the US Open, the National Open, the US Junior
and the US Senior.

You are confusing the possibility of misuse with actual misuse. Do you
believe that there were better tournaments to use? If so, make that case.

Before you were suggesting that players should have been able to qualify
by not playing at all, just by sitting on a marginal rating. That seems
clearly
much worse than the tournaments used.

Under the official USCF rules still in force, qualification to the US
Championship is by rating plus there is an activity requirement.

If Bill Goichberg does not like those rules, he should move to change
them and not merely ignore them.


Your inability to understand rules of any kind is well established in
this newsgroup. But are you at least conceding that the CCA tournaments
were worthy qualifiers, your only objection being their non-compliance
with the rules as you (mis)understand them?

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,

But in chess terms, it would make lousy press...because we have a rating
system and if you have a system where the top players don't win almost
every time...people blame the system instead of applauding underdogs.


what does this writer know about mass market media? what 'people' will say
is that underdog bites top players, no?

Many people thought the FIDE KO formula was poor for this reason (though I
was not one of them -- I think such a formula saves chess as it gets
closer to being solved and so becomes more of a technique exercise and
less trial and error science).


this is somewhat abstract - for 99.9% of players it makes no difference if
chess is 'solved' whatever that can mean - since no computer can claim any
rating at all for playing without its book = on, which is not chess, its
plain simple cheating

but let us not diverge too far into this sideline based on what ' 'many
people' according to the delegate will think.

If you have too many underdogs winning in a system where people think you
have a "scientific" way of already knowing who *should* win, then the
result gets junked.

the delegate argues that against the results of employing the top 100
players are 'junk' - really? as if Americans also think the favorites in a
contest will win, and that is why they watch? - he does not accord with
Adorjan, a W Ch candidate who thinks otherwise!

That's another reason why an open Swiss isn't so hot for a title tourney.
Great for an annual prize affair, poor for title transfer.


Presentation of a large open Swiss 'is not so hot' for whom? for God's sake!

This sort of vague depressing of chess prospects in this country suffers
from the usual and vague apprehensions and fears, by people who do not know
enough to suggest otherwise, is nothing to any point. The current writer has
no experience with media, and cares to know nothing.

Mr. Berry who wrote here before might also care to name his pronouns, lest
he side one side of the defeatist fence, or the other.

If he did care to encourage money into chess, he needs to liven up his
ideas, lest they become confused with Eric Johnson's here, and a 23 person
staff who have achieved less in mainstream media than the people who do
dominos.

Phil Innes.



ECJ

This reminds me of the famous comment by U.S. Senator Roman Hruska
concerning the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the United States
Supreme Court.

In response to the complaint that Carswell had been a "mediocre"
judge, Hruska replied, "Even if he is mediocre, there are millions of
mediocre Americans, and they too deserve to be represented on the
United States Supreme Court".

Sam Sloan

On Nov 14, 7:25 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

this is somewhat abstract - for 99.9% of players it makes no difference if
chess is 'solved' whatever that can mean - since no computer can claim any
rating at all for playing without its book = on, which is not chess, its
plain simple cheating

Phil Innes.

Wrong, as usual.

Many chess computer programs have no book at all, yet they play just
about as well as computer programs with an extensive chess book.

Sam Sloan