Re: To Delegates and Alternates: Petition to Recall Bill Goichberg

No. He said that we ought to get rid of Sam Sloan because he was a
demented buffoon who disgraced his office. Examples (All written by
Bill Goichberg during the election, all manifestly correct):

"Sloan has not "exposed payments made by board members to their
political allies," nor have there been any such payments.  I am not
aware of any expenditures that he has stopped.  As for exposing
"political deals and secrets," he has posted a lot of misinformation
such as charging that "virtually all USCF financial records have been
destroyed" when virtually none were destroyed, Polgar Chess Club
tournaments were "re-rated for political reasons" when there is not a
shred of evidence that any such thing happened, two Executive Board
candidates were allowed to run in 2005 without paying filing fees when
it is clear that they paid these fees, and many other whoppers.

"The board censured Sloan twice, first for falsely posting that board
candidates had been permitted to run without paying filing fees as
well as insulting language and attacking a sponsor, and the second
time for posting a pornographic link and associating it with a
sponsor.

"Sloan's "scholastic chess plan" is utter nonsense.  USCF is
experimenting with a bulk membership plan in a few school districts,
not a few schools, and Sloan had nothing to do with beginning this
plan.

"Regarding Sloan being "opposed to allowing players to buy their way
into the US Championship," that is not what he wrote on March 5, when
the board discussed this issue.  He said, "I think we should be very
careful about this.  I do not think we should advertise this in Chess
Life." He then mentioned the names of two promising young players and
wrote, "I think these players should be contacted privately and
offered these opportunities, avoiding an ad in Chess Life."

"USCF has lost money 8 of the last 10 years (not 9 of 11), but since
the end of May, 2003 we have GAINED well over $500,000.

"Sloan's charges of a "gravy train" and "milking the membership funds"
are unsupported and outrageous.  Sloan's reckless charges and the
sexual content of the samsloan.com website have hurt the image of
USCF, and cost us at least one major sponsor during the past year.

"Sam Sloan may mean well, and he may really believe that he is
exposing corruption and saving the Federation, but it is a disgrace
for USCF to have on its Executive Board a person who has made so many
false charges and attacked so many people."

Not everyone has as poor a memory as the Sloon.

                            Sam Sloan
                            1664 Davidson Ave., Apt. 1B
                            Bronx NY 10453-7877

                            Tel. 917-507-7226
                            samhsloan@gmail.com

                            July 22, 2008

To the USCF Delegates and Alternates:

                Re: Petition to Recall Bill Goichberg from the USCF Executive
Board

Dear Delegates and Alternates:

I am writing to you because of a grave crisis that confronts the
United States Chess Federation. Yes, I know that every year we have
another grave crisis, so what else is new? But this is the mother of
all grave crisis, because this grave crisis THREATENS THE ENTIRE
EXISTENCE OF THE UNITED STATES CHESS FEDERATION.

The crisis has arisen because USCF President Bill Goichberg has
proposed and the entire board has passed 6-0 without discussion a plan
to turn Chess Life and Chess Life for Kids magazines into online
publications, so that the regular and scholastic members will no
longer receive either Chess Life or Chess Life for Kids in the mail.
The members will also no longer receive membership cards. Life
Memberships will no longer be sold. Instead, the regular members will
receive a brief quarterly bulletin directing them to a website where
they can read Chess Life and Chess Life for Kids on the Internet.

This proposed change has evoked outrage among those USCF members who
have heard about it. However, most members have not heard about this,
which is the reason why I am writing you this letter.

When Bill Goichberg was elected USCF President in 2005, nobody
campaigned harder for him to be elected than I did. I thought that
Goichberg would be a good president. He had wanted to be president for
more than 30 years and I felt that he deserved the the chance. I
dismissed nay-sayers who complained that Goichberg had a conflict of
interest.

However, subsequent events have demonstrated that Bill Goichberg is
entirely unsuitable to be USCF President. His presidency has been a
disaster. His term of office will not expire until August 2009. With
Goichberg as president, the USCF will not survive that long. He must
be removed now!

Bill Goichberg is not entirely bad, not at all. There are many good
things about him, which is the reason why I supported him for more
than 40 years until just recently.

However, there is one thing that is really bad about Bill Goichberg,
which I did not fully realize until recently, which is:

GOICHBERG DOES NOT LISTEN TO ANYBODY

Goichberg is truly independent. He makes up his own mind about things.
This, by itself, is good. However, when you are the president of an
organization like the USCF with 86,000 members, you must listen and
pay attention to what the members want. Goichberg does not do that.

The worst part is GOICHBERG NEVER CHANGES HIS MIND.

This is the real problem. Just about everybody who has commented on
his plan to put Chesse online has told Bill Goichberg that his idea is
bad, wrong, destructive, terrible, horrible, and awful. Yet, GOICHBERG
WILL NOT LISTEN. Some have gone further, telling Goichberg that his
idea is “insane” and “suicidal”. Those saying these strong words
include some of the most distinguished, respected and well known long
standing members of the USCF.

For example, Grandmaster Larry Evans has commented, “This will be the
death knell of the organization”.

Dr. Frank Brady, the founder of Chess Life magazine who is now
Chairman of the Department of Journalism of St. John's University, has
written a detailed letter explaining why the Goichberg “New Plan”, as
Goichberg calls, it will not work.

In response, Randy Bauer, a board member who strongly supports the
plan to turn Chess Life into an online publication, had written back
to Dr. Brady a highly insulting letter, dismissing Dr. Brady as an
“academic”, as opposed to Bauer who claims to have experience in the
business world. (Bauer once had a job working for a state government.
That is his claim to be an expert in business.)

On May 18, 2008, Bauer wrote about Chess Life: “IT IS A DINASOUR. GET
OVER IT. Time to move on. Randy Bauer.”

Here is what Dr. Frank Brady wrote on May 18, 2008:

Colleagues:

As the founding Editor of Chess Life, and as someone who has been in
the magazine business for a number of years, I can say the following:
the reason that some magazines and newspapers are switching from print
to on-line versions is because of a lack of advertising (due to the
poor economy). Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times,
told me personally that he was “message agnostic” and that he didn't
care whether there would be a hard copy of the Times or whether it
would eventually be delivered totally online. However, the online
version has yet to make money...and the Times is hurting financially.

Since Chess Life is not an advertising-driven medium (although it has
some ads), it should be looked at from its promotional and "pride"
value.

If I were still on the USCF Board I would definitely vote against
turning Chess Life into an online publication. And for what it is
worth, I have both an online and a home-delivery subscription to The
New York Times, and I rarely ever read the on-line version. I might
also point out that many marketers are giving up on e-mail and online
approaches because it's just not working. They are reverting to the
old tried and true direct mail efforts.

Dr. Frank Brady, President
Marshall Chess Club

In response, Randy Bauer dismissed Dr. Brady's comments in BINFO
200802983 on May 21, 2008, saying, “I'm sure a journalism department
is a great place to educate future journalists, and if this were a
question about how to educate future USCF journalists, Frank Brady
would definitely be a dispositive source.”

Al Lawrence wrote to the board, “In fact, I'm concerned that there's
not a hint of self-doubt in your email. I think that's a risky
attitude. I'd resist circling the wagons, and find some unbiased
experts outside the Federation who can help with this big decision. It
would be worth spending some money on before plunging into the deep
end of a drained pool.”

Bauer's response to all these objections is, “Please note that this is
NOT about eliminating Chess Life as a major marketing asset. This is
only about how it is delivered.”

In short, Bauer feels that the members and the delegates should not be
concerned about the fact that regular USCF members will no longer
receive Chess Life in the US mail, as they will still be able to read
it on the Internet.

Goichberg points out that under his plan the regular USCF membership
dues will be reduced to $29, as opposed to the either $41 or $49 dues
today. Goichberg feels that the membership will go up with the lower
does. Goichberg finds no problem with the fact that the regular
members will receive no magazine or even a membership card in the mail
in return for paying $29. Goichberg feels that since the printing and
mailing of Chess Life is the biggest expense the USCF has, the
federation's problems will be solved simply by cutting the magazine.
New members will flock to join the USCF because of the lower dues,
says Goichberg.

This is not even the biggest problem with Bill Goichberg. A bigger
problem is that as President, GOICHBERG DOES NOT TELL THE OTHER BOARD
MEMBERS WHAT HE IS DOING.

During my one year on the board, we, the board members, were
constantly frustrated by this problem. Goichberg had two board members
in his hip pocket, who would never vote against Goichberg even when
they would admit privately that he was wrong. This left the three of
us who were independent of Goichberg and had different ideas. However,
on a six member board we could never overturn anything Goichberg did,
because the best we could ever get was 3-3 tie vote which means that
out motion failed. Thus, we were not participants in governance. We
were just spectators.

Even worse, Goichberg would do things without telling the rest of the
board about it at all. There are numerous examples of this. For
example, in November, 2006, an announcement appeared on the USCF
website that the 2007 US Championship and Zonal Qualifier would be a
32 player two-game knockout event played online over the Internet from
regional centers. Nobody else on the board had ever heard of this
plan. We certainly had not approved of it. This was all done by
Goichberg. Later, this plan failed because no sponsor could be found
for this event. Goichberg should never have announced this event
without a signed contract from a sponsor. Goichberg implied that
Merrill Lynch was going to sponsor the event. This was a pure
fabrication. No executive of Merrill Lynch with decision making
authority had ever any expressed interest in putting up money for such
an event. Then Goichberg decided to make the US Championship into an
open tournament that anybody including even rank beginners could enter
upon payment of $20,000. Again, the board had never approved nor even
knew about this plan. As it turned out, no beginner paid $20,000 to
play in the US Championship, but two players who had not qualified
bought their way in by paying $5,000 and $4,000 each.

Another thing, Goichberg decided that the US Championship should have
four women players in the tournament. When only two women with
reasonably high ratings accepted, Goichberg went down the line,
inviting lower and lower rated women players, who kept declining
because they did not want to be the “token women” in an event where
they have no chance, until finally two girl experts rated below 2200
accepted, whereas Grandmaster strength players like Ben Finegold rated
over 2600 who wanted very much to play was not allowed to get into the
tournament. Finegold had not “qualified” because he does not like
Goichberg tournaments, which many of the qualifiers were.

Again, Goichberg did all this without even telling the other board
members about it.

This debasing of the formerly prestigious US Championship has had long
range effects. This year only five players accepted invitations to the
US Junior Championship. 70 players were invited down the list, as top
players kept declining. Normally, the US Junior is among the most
prestigious chess events in the US and competition is fierce to get
in. Normally, it requires a rating of about 2400 to be invited. This
year the organizers were inviting players down to the 2000 level and
getting few takers.

The reason, as one former US Junior Champion has explained, is that
the US Junior Championship has been debased. First prize is an
invitation to the US Championship, previously an all grandmaster event
where only the top 14 rated players can play. Now that Goichberg has
opened the US Championship to qualifiers and to anyone willing to pay
money without regard to rating, there is little interest among our top
young players in trying to win an invitation as a prize.

Furthermore, thus far there are no sponsors for the 2009 US
Championship, as who wants to put up money for an event where the
primary way to get in is to qualify from a Goichberg tournament. Since
Goichberg is getting the entry fees, Goichberg should put up the
money, they say.

The important point here is the board never voted to do this. The USCF
Executive Board never voted to make the US Championship into a super-
Goichberg Open Tournament. The board never voted on or even knew about
any of these things. Goichberg, using and abusing his position as USCF
President, did all of these things completely himself. The board
simply could not stop him, although we tried. Goichberg has Bill Hall
as his yes-man and that is a big part of the problem.

What was especially annoying to me, Sam Sloan, was that every time a
problem developed with the Goichberg self-serving schemes and plans,
he blamed me, Sam Sloan, for their failure. For example, the Goichberg
plan to hold the US Championship and Zonal Tournament as a 32 player
knock-out played over the Internet was ridiculous on its face plus, we
later found out, it violated FIDE rules. When no sponsor came forward
to sponsor the event, Goichberg said it was all the fault of Sam
Sloan. Every ;problem the USCF had was the all fault of Sam Sloan,
Goichberg said. All we had to do is get rid of Sam Sloan and
everything will be sweetness and light again, said Goichberg, on
17,000 postcards he mailed to USCF members.

The fact is the USCF has been on a downward slope ever since Goichberg
first got elected as USCF Vice-President in 1996. Up until 1996, the
USCF had a healthy surplus every year. We were making money. As soon
as Goichberg came in, we started losing money. From 1996 to the
present, The USCF has lost more than two million dollars. The
accounting and bookkeeping has been so messed up that nobody knows how
much we have really lost. However, in just the three years since
Goichberg became president in 2005, we have lost about $500,000
altogether.

In this fiscal year just completed, a member of the finance committee
has reported that the loss is $144,000. Bill Hall says that the loss
is “only” $53,000, but that is after removing the cap on “imaginary
money” that the delegates voted at the 2007 delegates meeting. It
appears that the loss for this year in real money is $258,000.

Goichberg writes that the real loss will be “only” $50,000 “which is
good considering” wrote Goichberg on July 17, 2008. Meanwhile, a
member of the USCF Finance Committee says that the loss of “only”
$50,000 is achieved because $85,000 due from Hanon Russell and USCF
Sales has been booked as an “account receivable” whereas Hanon Russell
is refusing to pay and is not going to pay. Also, they are bringing
back $70,000 in “imaginary money” which the Delegates voted in 2007
not to be counted as income, since it does not exist. This imaginary
money is bring brought back in on the pretext of “accrual accounting”
although it should be written off as a loss.

This is why Goichberg wants to abolish Chess Life and Chess Life for
Kids magazines. He claims that these losses of $500,000 are due to
“competition from the Internet”. So, according to Goichberg, all we
have to do is stop printing Chess Life and Chess Life for Kids and we
will be profitable again. But, wait a second. Did not he say last year
that all we have to do was get rid of Sam Sloan and we will be
profitable again? By the way, during my one year on the board, the
USCF showed a profit, the only real profit the USCF has had since
1996. Is it possible that Sam Sloan had something to do with that??

The Bottom Line is:

1. The USCF has lost more than $2 million since Bill Goichberg first
became USCF Vice-President in 1996. Goichberg has done nothing to stop
these losses. He even brags that the USCF has “only” lost $50,000 this
year, although in real money the USCF has lost more than $250,000.

2. Goicberg runs the USCF as a one-man dictatorship. He does things
without a vote and without even telling the other board members what
he is doing.

3. Goichberg is determined to go ahead with his plans to turn Chess
Life and Chess Life for Kids into online publications, even though
many USCF members have told him that his plans are “insane” and even
“suicidal”.

4. Goichberg refuses to make necessary changes to save the
organization. He refuses to fire Bill Hall even though Hall is utterly
worthless and the USCF has lost more than $500,000 in the three years
that Hall has been executive director. Goichberg refuses to cut staff
and expenses or to eliminate non-productive employees and consultants.

For all of these reasons, I ask you to come to the Delegates meeting
in Dallas, August 9-10, to vote against the Goichberg “New Plan”, and
to sign a petition to recall and remove Bill Goichberg from the USCF
Executive Board.

                                    Very Truly Yours,

                                    Sam Sloan