"The Masked Bishop" wrote in message gy.com...
The ICB editor does not submit ads to the Board for review prior to
publication.

And the ICB editor just didn't notice that the dates conflicted? It never
crossed his mind to pick up the phone and call someone, seeing that two
major events were scheduled for the same weekend? Sure, Vince, whatever you
say....

Does the job description of a chess magazine editor include checking
ads and TLA's for conflicting dates? Sorry TMB, this argument doesn't
hold water.

In article , Vince Hart says...

This is the absolutely the first time that I have heard any claim that
you had the Thanksgiving weekend reserved prior to Springfield's bid
for the Illinois Class.

So you admit that the ICA officers did not check with their own calendar before
discussing bids with anyone.

And yet you were ready to dump on me.


From what I have read, it does not appear
that the tour rules contemplate reserving a weekend with "tentative"
plans for a tournament.

As a matter of practice, good organizers would give Bill dates that they were
strongly contemplating up front, so as to help better manage the calendar.
"Tentative" means "Don't publish it to the broad group of players yet, but do
get back to me before giving it away."

HAD YOU CHECKED WITH YOUR OWN CALENDAR you would have known.

Moreover, I cannot begin to imagine why you
would not have raised this claim previously if it were true.

Of course, Vince would state that Kevin would once again lie about a verifiable
fact, rather that admit that he never checked with his own calendar.

Are you EVER wrong Vince?


I have two e-mails from you dated April 8, 2003. In the first you
say: "I need a few days to get this together. I found out yesterday
that my site is available, now I need to work on the financials. I
also have to get out the Denker qualifier notifications this week, and
the timining on that is urgent. So probably the best I can do is
Sunday in terms of getting this bid to people." Is it now your
contention that you had this date reserved for several months without
finding out whether your site was available?

Since I work with more than one site and negotiate price each time, and that
often takes weeks, YES!!

Where do the tour rules
authorize something like this.

Why would the operation of the calendar be in the tour rules?

Why didn't you mention that you had
the date reserved?

Funny thing. I suppose I assumed that you had actually checked with your own
calendar!

It certainly would have effected my vote on the
matter.


In the second e-mail, you state as follows: "One additional
qualifier, and this refers to an email that I sent out earlier...as an
organizer I can (I assume you meant to put the word "not" here)

Yes, I think you are correct.

really
schedule the class in early November as it will conflict with several
other large scholastic events and will harm participation.

Note also, I wasn't talking about a tournament that would run in conflict with
Springfield, my primary focus was on the Class! (Though I probably hadn't
totally eliminated some of the alternatives just to keep options open.)

My bid
would be for the weekend of Thanksgiving. As I noted earlier- if this
is a problem or a dealbreaker for everyone let me know now, and we can
save you and me a lot of time."

Yes, at this point the ICA had really confused the process by talking about 2-3,
maybe 4, variations of what could happen. I was trying to get them to cut to
the bottom line.

How could the dates be a problem or a
dealbreaker if you already had them reserved?

Read it again, Vince. It wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I was asking if it was
a deal-breaker for the ICA.

What possible reason
could you have for not informing us that you had asked Bill Smythe to
hold the dates for you?

Maybe the simple fact that I assumed you had already checked with your own
calendar. Maybe because I was getting tired of the ineptitude and was beginning
to think it was pointless to deal with ICA. Frankly I don't completely recall.


I always understood that you wanted to bid on the Illinois Class
Kevin, but I don't recall seeing anything to suggest that you believed
that you had some prior claim to those dates. If you believed such a
thing, why wouldn't you respond to Tom Knoedler's attempt to inform
you that he had a problem with you running a tournament on
Thanksgiving:

"Kevin

Thanksgiving weekend [ Nov 29 and Nov 30 ] is when the Springfield IL
Chess Club was intending to hold the Illinois Amateur. If that is
the weekend when you intend to hold the Illinois Class, then the
Springfield IL Chess Club will have no other choice except to withdraw
our bid.

Thomas Knoedler
Springfield IL Chess Club, President"

I think I did respond to this Vince, by sending out my deal-breaker email.


If you felt that you had the right to run a tournament on these dates,
why didn't you extend the Springfield organizers the simple courtesy
of informing them that you still intended to run a tournament on those
dates or at least that you reserved the right?

I thought I already had by informing ICA of the dates for the calendar, and at
this point I'm fairly certain I was just frustrated. Lie a lot of chessplayers,
every now and then I get a little passive-aggressive, and my bad, I might have
here. Frankly, I don't completely recall because I had tried to move on.

However badly you
might have felt that the ICA screwed up the bidding process, why
wouldn't you let Springfield make an informed decision especially when
they were indicating their willingness to withdraw their bid?

I thought I had. ICA had the dates.


After the Springfield organizers complained about your event, you sent
the ICA officers an e-mail on September 26, 2003 that contained the
following statements:

"When we decided to run an event Thanksgiving weekend, we did so
because there was no event that weekend in Chicago, and we assumed
that if Chicagoans wished to play, they would be more likely to go to
tournament in Milwaukee (99 miles from you) than to the IL Class (201
miles from you). We were very sensitive to the issue of competing
with the Illinois Class, but at the same time we wanted to provide
area players a chance to play in Illinois that weekend. We talked to
ICA officers about the tournament, and confirmed with them that it
wouldn't be a problem. Maybe some people will feel they should have
answered differently, but I do think it is important to know that we
asked. We also made a point of using a north side hotel, so that
those in the west or south of Chicago might be a little more inclined
to look at the class. We had an option at a west-side hotel and
specifically rejected it."


That's true.

Why is there no mention of the fact that you decided to run an event
months before the Illinois Class was scheduled for Thanksgiving
weekend? Why is there no mention of the fact that you had reserved
these dates? I just don't see anything in any of your previous
statements that is at all consistent with your current claim that you
had reserved these dates.

Then instead of assuming I am lying, ask your own calendar. And the timing was
close. I had informed Bill only a short period of time (like a week or two)
prior to even hearing that the Class was out for bid. I was working on that
date specifically because the Class was not generally held on that date, so I
thought it would be open.


In any case, your claim that the dates belonged to you is totally
inconsistent with the claims you have been making for the past several
weeks. Just yesterday, you wrote to Ron Suarez, "If the ICA president
had said - 'Look, I understand why you want to do this, I'd really
rather you didn't' do you really think we would have run it anyway?
Ron, I think you know me better than that." Now you are assserting
that you had every right to ignore the ICA on the conflict question
because you had a superior right to those dates. You cannot
simultaneously claim that you would have listened to the ICA and that
you had no obligation to listen to the ICA.

Sure I can. In one case it's cooperation, on behalf of both parties, on the
other hand it's not. People like to work in a cooperative environment. When
instead, someone is more interested in proving himself right and everyone else
wrong, they get ****ed off. I put a financial offer on the table right away
when there was a problem. My only stipulation was that ICA work COOPERATIVELY to
resolve the issue. Instead, you continued to send emails blaming me. I took
the offer off the table.

At some point, Vince, you'll learn that people want to work cooperatively, and
you'll quit playing these "games" as though there is a checkmate to be found.


Regarding your reliance on your partner's discussion with the ICA
President, your September 26 e-mail made the following statements:

"My understanding is that:

1. Tim asked Larry about the event and about this being a mini-tour
event and was told that was fine.
2. Tim asked Larry if he wanted to direct, but Larry was busy with
other events
3. I think they talked at the IL Open."

Interestingly, there is nothing in here about the suggestion to make
it a mini-tour event coming from the ICA President which suggests to
me that this is not anything you relied upon at the time.

At the time, I wasn't concerned about who had made the suggestion. I didn't
think it important. Why would I have?


More importantly, you cite a conversation that took place after you
had already put your deposit down on your hotel which means you could
not have relied on it when you made that commitment. This is
confirmed in another e-mail later the same day:


"Additionally, the only conversation that I recall off the top of my
head is that Larry and Tim talked at the Open, I am not certain
whether they talked before this. I know Tim talked about hiring
Larry before this."


You certainly would have remembered that Tim and Larry had talked
earlier than this if you had relied upon that conversation to make
your financial commitment. I can only conclude that you have only
recently come to learn more about Tim's conversations with Larry, but
that you did not know of them or rely upon them when you made the
decision to commit your hotel deposit.

Try reading the above once again.

1. The first one says that I THOUGHT they talked at the Open.
2. The second says that they talked at the Open, perhaps earlier.

Again, in making a financial commitment, I was unconcerned about exactly when
they talked, only that they talked. I speak with Tim Just nearly daily. It
wasn't until recently that I double-checked the date of Tim's email and saw that
it was 8/21, about a week before the Open.

Regarding my duties as ICA Secretary, notice of the previous two
meetings for which I was Secretary was given in the appropriate issue
of the Illinois Chess Bulletin, which I understand was the practice
under your administration as well. For the October meeting, I was
directed to do a separate mailing of meeting notices because there was
a potential problem with the ICB.


Regarding the bidding process, you will get no argument from me that
it was disorganized. As far as I know, the tournaments were never put
out for bid. Organizers simply prepared bids for tournaments that
they were interested in running and presented them to the officers. I
think it would be lovely if the ICA had set procedures for such
matters but the current ICA board had to work with what was left from
the previous administration.

And I think that this is where the whole problem started Vince. I thought I had
a date, and suddenly and surprising heard that the Class was out for bid and
became interested.

In a poorly defined process that wasn't announced, why would it surprise you
that I didn't think of some of the things above?


Vince Hart

Kevin L. Bachler

Does the job description of a chess magazine editor

Um, these are not mickey mouse TLAs. This was the inner front cover and
inner back cover, both full-page ads. SOMEONE had to notice. We're talking a
staff of two here, putting this thing together, maybe even just one
person....

What has gone unmentioned here is the general idiocy of scheduling a major
tournament over Thanksgiving day weekend to begin with. We finally get a
four-day weekend off from work, and we're supposed to spend it in some
over-heated hotel conference room with you guys?


TMB

Kevin L. Bachler wrote in message ...
In article , Vince Hart says...

This is the absolutely the first time that I have heard any claim that
you had the Thanksgiving weekend reserved prior to Springfield's bid
for the Illinois Class.

So you admit that the ICA officers did not check with their own calendar before
discussing bids with anyone.

No, I will admit that I did not personally take any action to
determine whether there was anything already on the calendar for that
date. However, the calendar coordinator was at the meeting where
Springfield's interest in bidding on that date was first discussed and
he did not say anything about the fact that you had already asked to
have those dates reserved.

I will note that the Calendar Coordinator was pretty badly overworked
since he was also the Tour Statistician and the Membership Secretary.
Maybe he forgot about your request for those dates. Maybe he felt
that "tentative" tournament plans were not sufficient to reserve a
place on the calendar. Did you ever see your tournament on the
calendars that he forwarded to you to be posted on the websites? If
not, why didn't you confirm it with him?

And why would you have asked him to let you know if someone else
expressed an interest in those dates? Wouldn't it have been so you
could alert the other organizer to the fact that you already had the
dates reserved? Or was it so you could keep your mouth closed and
surprise the other organizer with your event after he had committed
time and money to his plans?

From what I have read, it does not appear
that the tour rules contemplate reserving a weekend with "tentative"
plans for a tournament.

As a matter of practice, good organizers would give Bill dates that they were
strongly contemplating up front, so as to help better manage the calendar.
"Tentative" means "Don't publish it to the broad group of players yet, but do
get back to me before giving it away."

HAD YOU CHECKED WITH YOUR OWN CALENDAR you would have known.


So this is not the regular calendar that gets published in the
magazine or on the website. Is it some sort of secret calendar that
the Calendar Coordinator keeps? How could I have checked it when I
did not know it existed?

But wasn't the reason that he was supposed to get back to you was so
that you could assert your right to the dates before they were given
away? And if you did not assert your right to the dates, wouldn't the
Coordinator be entitled to presume that you were no longer
contemplating a tournament?

And just how long is this tentative reservation good for? You say
that you reserved the dates "much before [you] ever found out the
class was out to bid." Since the bid was awarded in early April, does
that mean you had the dates reserved in January or February? The ICA
President was notified of your event in late August. Is really the
practice to let an organizer tie up dates on the calendar for more
than half a year simply because he is "strongly contemplating" a
tournament, particularly when he knows that others are committing time
and money to tournaments on those dates?




I have two e-mails from you dated April 8, 2003. In the first you
say: "I need a few days to get this together. I found out yesterday
that my site is available, now I need to work on the financials. I
also have to get out the Denker qualifier notifications this week, and
the timining on that is urgent. So probably the best I can do is
Sunday in terms of getting this bid to people." Is it now your
contention that you had this date reserved for several months without
finding out whether your site was available?

Since I work with more than one site and negotiate price each time, and that
often takes weeks, YES!!

Where do the tour rules
authorize something like this.

Why would the operation of the calendar be in the tour rules?

The rules that are published in the ICB discuss the importance of
getting tour events on the calendar in order to avoid conflicts in
between tour events. It seems to be a logical fit to me.


Why didn't you mention that you had
the date reserved?

Funny thing. I suppose I assumed that you had actually checked with your own
calendar!

But they weren't on the published calendar and you recognized that
there was a danger that "tentative" dates might be given away. That's
why you wanted to be notified. How could you just ignore the fact
that they were being given away. And if you acknowledge the
possibility that "tentative" dates can be given away, whether by
oversight or inadvertence, how can you claim that your right to the
dates was not ended when the bid was awarded to Springfield?



In the second e-mail, you state as follows: "One additional
qualifier, and this refers to an email that I sent out earlier...as an
organizer I can (I assume you meant to put the word "not" here)

Yes, I think you are correct.

really
schedule the class in early November as it will conflict with several
other large scholastic events and will harm participation.

Note also, I wasn't talking about a tournament that would run in conflict with
Springfield, my primary focus was on the Class! (Though I probably hadn't
totally eliminated some of the alternatives just to keep options open.)

My bid
would be for the weekend of Thanksgiving. As I noted earlier- if this
is a problem or a dealbreaker for everyone let me know now, and we can
save you and me a lot of time."

Yes, at this point the ICA had really confused the process by talking about 2-3,
maybe 4, variations of what could happen. I was trying to get them to cut to
the bottom line.

How could the dates be a problem or a
dealbreaker if you already had them reserved?

Read it again, Vince. It wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I was asking if it was
a deal-breaker for the ICA.




What possible reason
could you have for not informing us that you had asked Bill Smythe to
hold the dates for you?

Maybe the simple fact that I assumed you had already checked with your own
calendar. Maybe because I was getting tired of the ineptitude and was beginning
to think it was pointless to deal with ICA. Frankly I don't completely recall.


I always understood that you wanted to bid on the Illinois Class
Kevin, but I don't recall seeing anything to suggest that you believed
that you had some prior claim to those dates. If you believed such a
thing, why wouldn't you respond to Tom Knoedler's attempt to inform
you that he had a problem with you running a tournament on
Thanksgiving:

"Kevin

Thanksgiving weekend [ Nov 29 and Nov 30 ] is when the Springfield IL
Chess Club was intending to hold the Illinois Amateur. If that is
the weekend when you intend to hold the Illinois Class, then the
Springfield IL Chess Club will have no other choice except to withdraw
our bid.

Thomas Knoedler
Springfield IL Chess Club, President"

I think I did respond to this Vince, by sending out my deal-breaker email.

Actually this is incorrect Kevin. The Springfield email was a
response to your deal-breaker email. Even it you thought that the
ICA officers should have looked at the "secret" calendar that shows
your right to the dates, you could not have possibly assumed that the
Springfield organizers knew about it. They are practically begging to
be told whether you are planning to run a tournament in opposition to
theirs and you wouldn't tell them.



If you felt that you had the right to run a tournament on these dates,
why didn't you extend the Springfield organizers the simple courtesy
of informing them that you still intended to run a tournament on those
dates or at least that you reserved the right?

I thought I already had by informing ICA of the dates for the calendar, and at
this point I'm fairly certain I was just frustrated. Lie a lot of chessplayers,
every now and then I get a little passive-aggressive, and my bad, I might have
here. Frankly, I don't completely recall because I had tried to move on.

However badly you
might have felt that the ICA screwed up the bidding process, why
wouldn't you let Springfield make an informed decision especially when
they were indicating their willingness to withdraw their bid?

I thought I had. ICA had the dates.


After the Springfield organizers complained about your event, you sent
the ICA officers an e-mail on September 26, 2003 that contained the
following statements:

"When we decided to run an event Thanksgiving weekend, we did so
because there was no event that weekend in Chicago, and we assumed
that if Chicagoans wished to play, they would be more likely to go to
tournament in Milwaukee (99 miles from you) than to the IL Class (201
miles from you). We were very sensitive to the issue of competing
with the Illinois Class, but at the same time we wanted to provide
area players a chance to play in Illinois that weekend. We talked to
ICA officers about the tournament, and confirmed with them that it
wouldn't be a problem. Maybe some people will feel they should have
answered differently, but I do think it is important to know that we
asked. We also made a point of using a north side hotel, so that
those in the west or south of Chicago might be a little more inclined
to look at the class. We had an option at a west-side hotel and
specifically rejected it."


That's true.

Why is there no mention of the fact that you decided to run an event
months before the Illinois Class was scheduled for Thanksgiving
weekend? Why is there no mention of the fact that you had reserved
these dates? I just don't see anything in any of your previous
statements that is at all consistent with your current claim that you
had reserved these dates.

Then instead of assuming I am lying, ask your own calendar. And the timing was
close. I had informed Bill only a short period of time (like a week or two)
prior to even hearing that the Class was out for bid. I was working on that
date specifically because the Class was not generally held on that date, so I
thought it would be open.

The problem is that this email says you decided to run your tournament
because the ICA had put the Illinois Class downstate and that did not
happen until April. Now you are saying that you had decided to run a
tournament over Thanksgiving "much before" the ICA made that decision.
In the email you say that your decided to run the tournament because
no one else was doing so and your current claim is that you decided to
run your tournament before anyone else even considered it. Which is
it?




In any case, your claim that the dates belonged to you is totally
inconsistent with the claims you have been making for the past several
weeks. Just yesterday, you wrote to Ron Suarez, "If the ICA president
had said - 'Look, I understand why you want to do this, I'd really
rather you didn't' do you really think we would have run it anyway?
Ron, I think you know me better than that." Now you are assserting
that you had every right to ignore the ICA on the conflict question
because you had a superior right to those dates. You cannot
simultaneously claim that you would have listened to the ICA and that
you had no obligation to listen to the ICA.

Sure I can. In one case it's cooperation, on behalf of both parties, on the
other hand it's not. People like to work in a cooperative environment. When
instead, someone is more interested in proving himself right and everyone else
wrong, they get ****ed off. I put a financial offer on the table right away
when there was a problem. My only stipulation was that ICA work COOPERATIVELY to
resolve the issue. Instead, you continued to send emails blaming me. I took
the offer off the table.

At some point, Vince, you'll learn that people want to work cooperatively, and
you'll quit playing these "games" as though there is a checkmate to be found.

But Kevin, your current story makes clear that you never felt that you
had any obligation to cooperate because you had a superior rights to
those dates. For the past several weeks, you have been claiming that
you relied on ICA's approval in running your Thanksgiving tournament
and that you would have done things differently if you had known that
the ICA had any problems with your event.

For example:

"We talked to ICA officers about the tournament, and confirmed with
them that it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe some people will feel they
should have answered dfferently, but I do think it is important to
know that we asked."

"If they didn't want an event that weekend, just say: "Could you
please not run an event that weekend." As I noted, we could have
either changed our plans, or changed the event so that it wouldn't
have been considered a competing event in the eyes of ICA and
Springfield."

"I made a number of commitments based on ICA's response to
us."

"If the ICA president had said - 'Look, I understand why you want to
do this, I'd really rather you didn't' do you really think we would
have run it anyway? Ron, I think you know me better than that."

"My point is that, just like Springfield, we made decisions based on
what we were told."

"First, we took our actions based on the feedback we got from ICA. As
I noted before, if someone had just said ‘Don't do that' we would have
worked out one of any number of alternatives."

"If it was made clear to us that it was an issue, we could have run no
event, run scholastic only, or run a much smaller event with a
scholastic event (depending on when we were made aware of the
problem.)"

"Unfortunately, based on the information we got, we made all sorts of
arrangements."

Now you are saying that you had the rights to the dates regardless of
what the ICA said or did.


What is quite clear is that you have been indifferent to the ICA's
position on your tournament all along. You have been happy to trumpet
any phrase or sentence that can be construed as condoning your
actions, but none of them ever really mattered in your
decision-making. You just did what you wanted to do because you felt
that you had the right to those dates.

I can understand your belief that the ICA screwed up by awarding the
Illinois Class to the Springfield Chess Club on the dates that you
felt you had reserved, but the time to raise that issue was seven
months ago when the ICA was considering Springfield's bid. Moreover,
when questions about your tournament started being raised in late
September, it would have been nice if you had made it clear that you
were basing your actions on a pre-existing right that you believed
dated back prior to last April rather than pretending that anything
the ICA said in August or September made any difference.

Frankly, I don't think you have a leg to stand on even if your claims
are true. Your plans were tentative when you first notified the
Coordinator. You knew that there was a risk that the Coordinator
might give the dates away. That is why you asked to be notified if
someone else expressed an interest. You also knew that someone else
was expressing an interest. Then, rather than asserting your claim,
you let something like six months pass between the time you told the
Coordinator of your tentative plans and the time you told the ICA
President about your tournament. I think you have effectively waived
any rights you might have had based on the alleged reservation of
dates.

Perhaps if you had been honest about the basis for your claim Kevin,
some reasonable solution could have been reached. Maybe the Masked
Bishop is right about the ICA. I haven't given up hope yet but having
to spend this much time trying to figure out what the ex-President is
mad about is awfully discouraging.

Vince Hart

"The Masked Bishop" wrote in message
y.com...

What has gone unmentioned here is the general idiocy of scheduling a major
tournament over Thanksgiving day weekend to begin with. We finally get a
four-day weekend off from work, and we're supposed to spend it in some
over-heated hotel conference room with you guys?

Been going to 'em in Phila. for over ten years. Thursday with the family,
the next three days with the great unwashed.

StanB

In article , Vince Hart says...

Kevin L. Bachler wrote in message
...
In article , Vince Hart says...

This is the absolutely the first time that I have heard any claim that
you had the Thanksgiving weekend reserved prior to Springfield's bid
for the Illinois Class.

So you admit that the ICA officers did not check with their own calendar before
discussing bids with anyone.

No, I will admit that I did not personally take any action to
determine whether there was anything already on the calendar for that
date. However, the calendar coordinator was at the meeting where
Springfield's interest in bidding on that date was first discussed and
he did not say anything about the fact that you had already asked to
have those dates reserved.

I will note that the Calendar Coordinator was pretty badly overworked
since he was also the Tour Statistician and the Membership Secretary.
Maybe he forgot about your request for those dates. Maybe he felt
that "tentative" tournament plans were not sufficient to reserve a
place on the calendar. Did you ever see your tournament on the
calendars that he forwarded to you to be posted on the websites? If
not, why didn't you confirm it with him?

1. Because tentative means (and I discussed this with him) "check with me first"
but not "post in calendar"


And why would you have asked him to let you know if someone else
expressed an interest in those dates? Wouldn't it have been so you
could alert the other organizer to the fact that you already had the
dates reserved? Or was it so you could keep your mouth closed and
surprise the other organizer with your event after he had committed
time and money to his plans?

Neither. It was so ICA could coordinate their calendar.


From what I have read, it does not appear
that the tour rules contemplate reserving a weekend with "tentative"
plans for a tournament.

As a matter of practice, good organizers would give Bill dates that they were
strongly contemplating up front, so as to help better manage the calendar.
"Tentative" means "Don't publish it to the broad group of players yet, but do
get back to me before giving it away."

HAD YOU CHECKED WITH YOUR OWN CALENDAR you would have known.


So this is not the regular calendar that gets published in the
magazine or on the website. Is it some sort of secret calendar that
the Calendar Coordinator keeps? How could I have checked it when I
did not know it existed?

Neither. Ask the calendar coordinator.

But wasn't the reason that he was supposed to get back to you was so
that you could assert your right to the dates before they were given
away? And if you did not assert your right to the dates, wouldn't the
Coordinator be entitled to presume that you were no longer
contemplating a tournament?

Did anyone get back to me until AFTER THE FACT?


And just how long is this tentative reservation good for? You say
that you reserved the dates "much before [you] ever found out the
class was out to bid." Since the bid was awarded in early April, does
that mean you had the dates reserved in January or February? The ICA
President was notified of your event in late August. Is really the
practice to let an organizer tie up dates on the calendar for more
than half a year simply because he is "strongly contemplating" a
tournament, particularly when he knows that others are committing time
and money to tournaments on those dates?


No one said anything about tying them up. The idea is to provide better
coordination by letting the calendar coordinator know of things further up the
pipeline.




I have two e-mails from you dated April 8, 2003. In the first you
say: "I need a few days to get this together. I found out yesterday
that my site is available, now I need to work on the financials. I
also have to get out the Denker qualifier notifications this week, and
the timining on that is urgent. So probably the best I can do is
Sunday in terms of getting this bid to people." Is it now your
contention that you had this date reserved for several months without
finding out whether your site was available?

Since I work with more than one site and negotiate price each time, and that
often takes weeks, YES!!

Where do the tour rules
authorize something like this.

Why would the operation of the calendar be in the tour rules?

The rules that are published in the ICB discuss the importance of
getting tour events on the calendar in order to avoid conflicts in
between tour events. It seems to be a logical fit to me.


It seems illogical. A reference to the calendar in the tour rules is logical.
Repeating all of the calendar information in the tour rules is nonsense.


Why didn't you mention that you had
the date reserved?

Funny thing. I suppose I assumed that you had actually checked with your own
calendar!

But they weren't on the published calendar and you recognized that
there was a danger that "tentative" dates might be given away.


Experienced organizers know that checking the calendar is only the first step.
You must check with the calendar coordinator.

That's
why you wanted to be notified. How could you just ignore the fact
that they were being given away. And if you acknowledge the
possibility that "tentative" dates can be given away, whether by
oversight or inadvertence, how can you claim that your right to the
dates was not ended when the bid was awarded to Springfield?

Because I didn't see a tournament in Springfield as a conflict with a tournament
in Northbrook.




In the second e-mail, you state as follows: "One additional
qualifier, and this refers to an email that I sent out earlier...as an
organizer I can (I assume you meant to put the word "not" here)

Yes, I think you are correct.

really
schedule the class in early November as it will conflict with several
other large scholastic events and will harm participation.

Note also, I wasn't talking about a tournament that would run in conflict with
Springfield, my primary focus was on the Class! (Though I probably hadn't
totally eliminated some of the alternatives just to keep options open.)

My bid
would be for the weekend of Thanksgiving. As I noted earlier- if this
is a problem or a dealbreaker for everyone let me know now, and we can
save you and me a lot of time."

Yes, at this point the ICA had really confused the process by talking about 2-3,
maybe 4, variations of what could happen. I was trying to get them to cut to
the bottom line.

How could the dates be a problem or a
dealbreaker if you already had them reserved?

Read it again, Vince. It wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I was asking if it was
a deal-breaker for the ICA.




What possible reason
could you have for not informing us that you had asked Bill Smythe to
hold the dates for you?

Maybe the simple fact that I assumed you had already checked with your own
calendar. Maybe because I was getting tired of the ineptitude and was beginning
to think it was pointless to deal with ICA. Frankly I don't completely recall.


I always understood that you wanted to bid on the Illinois Class
Kevin, but I don't recall seeing anything to suggest that you believed
that you had some prior claim to those dates. If you believed such a
thing, why wouldn't you respond to Tom Knoedler's attempt to inform
you that he had a problem with you running a tournament on
Thanksgiving:

"Kevin

Thanksgiving weekend [ Nov 29 and Nov 30 ] is when the Springfield IL
Chess Club was intending to hold the Illinois Amateur. If that is
the weekend when you intend to hold the Illinois Class, then the
Springfield IL Chess Club will have no other choice except to withdraw
our bid.

Thomas Knoedler
Springfield IL Chess Club, President"

I think I did respond to this Vince, by sending out my deal-breaker email.

Actually this is incorrect Kevin. The Springfield email was a
response to your deal-breaker email. Even it you thought that the
ICA officers should have looked at the "secret" calendar

It is the ICA calendar, I don't know how you classify that as secret.

that shows
your right to the dates, you could not have possibly assumed that the
Springfield organizers knew about it. They are practically begging to
be told whether you are planning to run a tournament in opposition to
theirs and you wouldn't tell them.


My assumption was that you were aware of this information and decided to run it
against me.




If you felt that you had the right to run a tournament on these dates,
why didn't you extend the Springfield organizers the simple courtesy
of informing them that you still intended to run a tournament on those
dates or at least that you reserved the right?

I thought I already had by informing ICA of the dates for the calendar, and at
this point I'm fairly certain I was just frustrated. Lie a lot of chessplayers,
every now and then I get a little passive-aggressive, and my bad, I might have
here. Frankly, I don't completely recall because I had tried to move on.

However badly you
might have felt that the ICA screwed up the bidding process, why
wouldn't you let Springfield make an informed decision especially when
they were indicating their willingness to withdraw their bid?

I thought I had. ICA had the dates.


After the Springfield organizers complained about your event, you sent
the ICA officers an e-mail on September 26, 2003 that contained the
following statements:

"When we decided to run an event Thanksgiving weekend, we did so
because there was no event that weekend in Chicago, and we assumed
that if Chicagoans wished to play, they would be more likely to go to
tournament in Milwaukee (99 miles from you) than to the IL Class (201
miles from you). We were very sensitive to the issue of competing
with the Illinois Class, but at the same time we wanted to provide
area players a chance to play in Illinois that weekend. We talked to
ICA officers about the tournament, and confirmed with them that it
wouldn't be a problem. Maybe some people will feel they should have
answered differently, but I do think it is important to know that we
asked. We also made a point of using a north side hotel, so that
those in the west or south of Chicago might be a little more inclined
to look at the class. We had an option at a west-side hotel and
specifically rejected it."


That's true.

Why is there no mention of the fact that you decided to run an event
months before the Illinois Class was scheduled for Thanksgiving
weekend? Why is there no mention of the fact that you had reserved
these dates? I just don't see anything in any of your previous
statements that is at all consistent with your current claim that you
had reserved these dates.

Then instead of assuming I am lying, ask your own calendar. And the timing was
close. I had informed Bill only a short period of time (like a week or two)
prior to even hearing that the Class was out for bid. I was working on that
date specifically because the Class was not generally held on that date, so I
thought it would be open.

The problem is that this email says you decided to run your tournament
because the ICA had put the Illinois Class downstate and that did not
happen until April. Now you are saying that you had decided to run a
tournament over Thanksgiving "much before" the ICA made that decision.
In the email you say that your decided to run the tournament because
no one else was doing so and your current claim is that you decided to
run your tournament before anyone else even considered it. Which is
it?

All, why do you see the statements above as mutually exclusive? They are
reaffirming.





In any case, your claim that the dates belonged to you is totally
inconsistent with the claims you have been making for the past several
weeks. Just yesterday, you wrote to Ron Suarez, "If the ICA president
had said - 'Look, I understand why you want to do this, I'd really
rather you didn't' do you really think we would have run it anyway?
Ron, I think you know me better than that." Now you are assserting
that you had every right to ignore the ICA on the conflict question
because you had a superior right to those dates. You cannot
simultaneously claim that you would have listened to the ICA and that
you had no obligation to listen to the ICA.

Sure I can. In one case it's cooperation, on behalf of both parties, on the
other hand it's not. People like to work in a cooperative environment. When
instead, someone is more interested in proving himself right and everyone else
wrong, they get ****ed off. I put a financial offer on the table right away
when there was a problem. My only stipulation was that ICA work COOPERATIVELY to
resolve the issue. Instead, you continued to send emails blaming me. I took
the offer off the table.

At some point, Vince, you'll learn that people want to work cooperatively, and
you'll quit playing these "games" as though there is a checkmate to be found.

But Kevin, your current story makes clear that you never felt that you
had any obligation to cooperate because you had a superior rights to
those dates.

No, it makes clear that I thought you already knew. It was part of the
information at your disposal.

For the past several weeks, you have been claiming that
you relied on ICA's approval in running your Thanksgiving tournament
and that you would have done things differently if you had known that
the ICA had any problems with your event.


I would have. I assumed ICA knew and therefore expected somthing explicit and
clear.

SNIP


What is quite clear is that you have been indifferent to the ICA's
position on your tournament all along. You have been happy to trumpet
any phrase or sentence that can be construed as condoning your
actions, but none of them ever really mattered in your
decision-making. You just did what you wanted to do because you felt
that you had the right to those dates.


And what is clear from this is that you still won't accept your responsibility
or ICA's in the problem. I felt you knew of the dates since I had informed ICA
of the dates. Why do you assume that I would have a need to inform you again,
especially when I was getting more ****ed off at ICA's incompetence?


What I find interesting is that you continue to blame me in spite of information
to the contrary.

Kevin L. Bachler

Snip

And what is clear from this is that you still won't accept your responsibility
or ICA's in the problem. I felt you knew of the dates since I had informed ICA
of the dates. Why do you assume that I would have a need to inform you again,
especially when I was getting more ****ed off at ICA's incompetence?


What I find interesting is that you continue to blame me in spite of information
to the contrary.

Kevin L. Bachler

For what it's worth Kevin, I have learned quite a bit from the facts
and viewpoints given in this thread. I do not think that you did this
as a try to personally gain over the ICA or any other chess group or
individual.

I think the way the ICA is set up and has been operated, combined with
the fact that Bill Smythe left, created a great coincidence of
occasions that this mixup was formed.

The present officers did not operate the vehicle called the ICA as
adeptly as they could have. Certainly someone should have realized
when Bill left that the things he did for the ICA were crucial to the
smooth operation of organized chess in our area. They also failed to
get replacement(s) to immediately take over the important duties. The
time lag in duty assumption created this problem.

Larry was not active enough as the president in this cause. The other
officers really seemed to remain inactive also. Fortunately this is
not a terrible situation in and of itself.

Let's face it, if Springfield does some last minute marketing to the
Southern Illinois, Southwestern Iowa and Northeastern Missouri areas
they could easily pull off a very successful event. You should also
market your tournament to the Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin
and Northeastern Iowa groups as well as the Northeastern Indiana area.
I think you can indeed do well and I wish you well in that too.

Regards,

Ron Suarez

"Ron Suarez" wrote in message
news
Snip

I think the way the ICA is set up and has been operated, combined with
the fact that Bill Smythe left, created a great coincidence of
occasions that this mixup was formed.

Why did Smythe leave? I notice he hasn't posted here for quite a while --
unusual for him. He was a regular. Real nice guy, too. What's the haps on
the craps?

Let's face it, if Springfield does some last minute marketing to the
Southern Illinois, Southwestern Iowa and Northeastern Missouri areas
they could easily pull off a very successful event. You should also
market your tournament to the Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin
and Northeastern Iowa groups as well as the Northeastern Indiana area.
I think you can indeed do well and I wish you well in that too.

I think you mean SouthEASTERN Iowa and NORTHeastern Missouri, Ron, but I
know what you meant. I think the ICA is too Chicago-centric. I realize
that most tournaments in Illinois happen in and around the Windy City, but I
think that if Ex-Urban organizers would just appeal to a broader range of
players (e.g. Iowa, Missouri, and maybe even Kentucky players, if any exist)
they'd have more success. Sure, Chicago is the nucleus, but it certainly
won't make or break a tournament if you market it right. (The IL Class is
probably an exception though, due to it being a state event.)

I think all we Midwestern players could benefit if we just show more support
for one another's events. I had a handful of players come from Chicago to
play in this year's Sandbothe Memorial, plus a few from Minnesota and
Wisconsin, and I plan on playing in a few Peoria and Quincy tournaments this
year myself. The problem is contacts. Not enough TDs/organizers make an
effort to personally contact some of the known (notorious?) players in
neighboring states, and therein lies a big problem. Sure, it's in Chess
Life and on the IL or IA or MO state websites, but word-of-mouth is still
far and away the best form of advertising. To focus to much effort on what
is perceived as the chess capital in each respective city (e.g. Chicago or
Iowa City) is too short sighted and will end up short-changing you in
turnout if TDs/organizers don't start making some friends. Of course, I
realize that's difficult for a lot of players.

Regards,

Matt

PS. Looking forward to your next trip to Moline, Ron!

Regards,

Ron Suarez

Re downstate Illinois... has ICA ever thought about running something in
East St. Louis?

RSHaas