My response to malicious lies by chess politicians

This letter was posted on the USCF Forums to respond to the people who decided to spread false information about Paul, me and other candidates for political reason. Their tactic is if they lie about 10 things every day, someone will believe in some of them. Instead of doing positive things for chess or talk about what their candidates can do to help the USCF, they decided to viciously attack and lie about their opponents. Here is my letter:

I was told that a number of people are trying to discredit Paul and his marketing, promotion and PR expertise. One of the keys for his success is he likes to work in the background to accomplish many incredible things. He does not like to be in the limelight. He does not like to talk about himself or his personal life. It took me nearly 17 years to convince him to allow me to interview him about his life story.

So when he stays in the background, people say that he accomplished nothing. But if I tell people what he has done, people say he is boasting. Now which way do they want? Sounds like the Bud commercial: “Taste great! Less filling!”

If it was not for this election, most people would not even know about his accomplishments and he prefers it that way. But people need to know the truth. Today, an employee of the USCF asked Paul for the contact information to verify his past professional experience. It took Paul 10 seconds after he received this email to give this person the information for verification. He has nothing to hide but he is not going to give it to any Joe Blow. It is also unfortunate that we have chess politicians wanting to destroy people’s life for their own reasons. This is the same reason why I would never give anyone my personal contacts or private information either.

Here are just some of the things that came up off the top of my head that he has done in the past 5 years.

2004 US Women’s Olympiad Training Program (sponsor, manager and my coach)

2004 US Women’s Olympiad Team (sponsor, manager and my coach)

Handled the negotiation and brought the 2004 US Women’s Olympiad Training Squad to IBM HQ in Yorktown Heights and Stillwater, Oklahoma for an event organized and sponsored by Mr. Frank K. Berry.

Handled the negotiation to obtain sponsorships for the 2004 US Women’s Olympiad Training Squad and Team with IBM, ChessBase, ChessCafe, KCF, London Chess Center, Excalibur, ChessOnDVD.com, Frank Berry and his foundation, A&L Sheet Metal Corp, World Chess Network, US Chess Live, US Chess Trust, and many more)

Chess for Peace in Lindsborg (assisted Dr. Korenman in organizing this event and handled some of the marketing and PR duties)

Chess for Peace in Moscow (assisted Dr. Korenman in organizing this event and handled some of the marketing and PR duties)

Co-organizer with Dr. Korenman of 2 Battle of the Gender matches between Anatoly Karpov and me (Paul was also my coach on both matches)

One of the organizers (with Joel Channing and Don Schultz) of the World Record Simul in Palm Beach Garden (one of top 5 biggest chess stories in the world in the media for that year)

Co-organizer, sponsor, promoter and PR person for:

4 Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) and all side events
2 Susan Polgar National Open Championship for Girls (2006, 2007) and all side events
2 Susan Polgar World Open Championship for Girls (2006, 2007) and all side events
Susan Polgar All-Star Girl's Chess Team (2006-07)

2001 NY City Mayor’s Cup Invitational Tournament with Mayor Giuliani and NYC Sports Commissioner Ken Podziba (Hikaru Nakamura, Irina Krush, Greg Shahade, Eugene Perelshteyn, Dmitry Schneider, Leonid Yudasin, Pavel Blatny, Igor Novikov, etc.)

2006 NY City Mayor's Cup Invitational Tournament with Mayor Bloomberg and NYC Sports Commissioner Ken Podziba (highest rated RR event in US history Average USCF Rating: 2665+ Average FIDE Rating: 2622.5 – Gata Kamsky, Alex Onischuk, Ildar Ibragimov, Boris Gulko, Alex Stripunsky)

Tri-State Scholastic Championship with the honorable NY Governor George Pataki (2006)

Paul is also responsible for negotiating and obtaining most of the college scholarships awarded by the Susan Polgar Foundation in the past 3-4 years. There are a lot more but I think this is more than enough. I challenge other candidates to compare their accomplishments in chess in the past 3-5 years. I think only 1 or 2 candidates can come close to matching this.

It is very disappointing that some people keep on spreading false information to attack others daily instead of spending time and effort to do something positive for chess. Imagine how much better would the USCF be if everyone would just volunteer their time to help US Chess and the USCF instead of bashing each other all day long?

People questioned Dr. Korenman about why he hasn’t campaigned much. The reason for that is he is busy working on one of the biggest scholastic FIDE related project for January 2008 and many others. He is a doer, not talker and definitely not a chess politician.

And one last point, some people asked me about my marriage and why it was not on AP News.

Here was my response in case if you missed it:

I married my best friend of over 20 years. We have worked together for the last 6 years. How many people even knew that we were great friends since 1985-86? We never publicized our friendship because Paul does not care for anyone to know. My marriage is a private matter but it was NOT a secret. At least a few thousand people knew about it. The reason why it was not publicized is security. I have an order of protection by the family court as well as the criminal court. There are 3 trials coming up in June and July. It is the advice of my attorney, the police and the DA office not to make matters worse. I cannot go into details but it is a matter of life or death for my children and I. Chess politics is not nearly as important. This was TOLD to the board. I am sorry if people do not approve of my decision but I had to think of my family first. If I wanted to hide about marriage, I would have waited until after the election to get married. The board knew about this. So to make this a political issue after knowing the reason is reprehensible.

No, Paul was never paid by me for all his work. He did not accept any money for helping my sisters or any other players. And no, we do not have any joint account. That is our decision. Isn’t quite outlandish for people to speculate on my personal business? And yet it has to be brought up. Why? Yes, I am very much in love. Yes, I am very happy. It is not every day people can get married to their best friends. I wish everyone could. But as any other couple, we do not agree on many issues including business and the USCF, even when we worked together as friends before. In addition, we each have our own expertise and the USCF would miss out big time if one of us would not be able to serve.I am asked why my husband and I want to be on the board to serve. Simple! We have completely different expertise in areas that can greatly help the USCF which none of the candidates have. This board knew what we can do. We had a potential sponsor who wanted to give $1 mil to chess gradually over the next few years. That individual told this board specifically that he is very upset with the way how they treated him. A number of board members were copied on the email by this individual. He specifically requested to negotiate with Paul or me. He cannot be clearer than this.

Knowing this, the board refused to ask Paul or me to step in and help. All of a sudden, Mr. Lux (a nice person but has no experience dealing with this kind of sponsor), who was not copied on any of the emails, called this individual. This potential sponsor refused to take his call and was furious. He ended all negotiations with this board. I cannot even repeat what he said to the board members. Because of this, the USCF lost another potential $1 million sponsor.

In a week or so, there will be a major announcement about Paul regarding the upcoming World Championship in Mexico City. All I can tell you right now is the main sponsor and organizer has asked Paul to take a major role in this incredible event. Serious business people know what Paul can do while a few people decide to bash him even if it costs the USCF at the end. And this is for the best interest of this federation?

The bottom line is members can choose to elect chess politicians or they can choose to elect people who do things to help chess. If there is only one choice, I would put Paul as a more valuable board member than me because of what he can do.

Thank you for letting me know about the question.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgar