Main
Date: 11 Jul 2008 21:57:51
From: samsloan
Subject: Goichberg is being hoist by his own petard
Goichberg is being hoist by his own petard

"Hoist by His Own Petard" is a term perhaps derived from Shakespeare
which means to be caught in one's own trap.

http://www.bartleby.com/59/4/hoistbyoneso.html

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist%20by%20your%20own%20petard.html

What is happening to Bill Goichberg, current USCF President, is a
perfect example of this.

When I won election to the USCF Executive board in July 2006, even
before I had taken office, Bill Goichberg went into a wild frenzy of
trying to ensure that either I would not be able to take office, or I
would not be able to be effective in office and/or would be defeated
when I tried to be re-elected to the same office.

Goichberg did all this, even though I was no threat whatever to his
hegemony and indeed I had been his long-term supporter.

Here are a few examples:

1. Sam Sloan was due to take office on August 13, 2006, so, starting
on July 31, 2006 Bill Goichberg wrote a series of five letters to the
USCF litigation attorney Michael Matsler asking Matsler how to stop
Sam Sloan from taking office or how to remove him from office
immediately after he had taken office. Matsler replied to each of
these five letters and his legal bill was a bit less than $1000 for
each letter, so the total bill paid by the USCF was a bit less than
five thousand dollars.

2. At the beginning of the 2006 delegates meeting but just prior to
the start of the regular meeting, a change in the by-laws was made and
passed to effectively give the delegates the power to remove Sam Sloan
from the board during the meeting. This was done just a moment before
Sam Sloan was due to take office. However, the plan did not work
because few delegates were willing to sign the petition to recall a
person who had just been elected. Ironically, it is this provision
originally passed to try to remove Sam Sloan from office which is
planned to be used to try to remove Paul Truong, Susan Polgar and Bill
Goichberg from office during the forthcoming meeting in Dallas. This
is an example of Bill Goichberg being hoist by his own petard.

3. Bill Goichberg refused to appoint Sam Sloan as liaison to any
committee. Usually the liaison appointments are divided up equally
among the board members.

4. Bill Goichberg did not allow any of the first board meetings when
Sam Sloan was on the board to be transcribed and broadcast, thereby
violating the by-laws, so that the general membership could not find
out what was really going on at those meetings.

5. Bill Goichberg refused to hold any of the board meetings in the
Crossville office while Sam Sloan was on the board, since Sloan was
constantly complaining about the waste and mismanagement of the
Crossville office.

6. Bill Goichberg directed the Chess Life Editor not to publish the
name of Sam Sloan in Chess Life magazine except as a routine listing
of all board members, so that when Chess Life columnists submitted
articles for publication with Sloan's name in them, that name was
deleted by the editor.

7. In order to bring about Sloan's defeat for re-election, Goichberg
groomed Polgar for a position on the board even though Goichberg knew
that since 2002 Polgar and Truong had been scamming the federation out
of large sums of money. In November 2003, while Goichberg had been
Acting Executive Director, he had paid Polgar $13, 358.56 without
telling the board about it, in defiance of a directive from Tim Hanke,
who was then VP of Finance, who said =93do not pay them a penny=94. Also,
Goichberg knew of a variety of other scams pulled by Polgar and
Truong, including their demand that they be paid $50,000 for training
the Womans Chess Olympiad Team, when that training was of no value and
consisted of Paul Truong telling the woman chess grandmaster what to
do during their menstrual periods.

8. Even though Goichberg knew that Polgar and Truong have a long
history of scamming the federation, he allowed a picture of Polgar to
appear in every issue of Chess Life magazine for a year and free ads
for the Susan Polgar Foundation to appear in every issue of Chess Life
magazine for a year. Also, Susan Polgar was given a cover story on
Chess Life magazine of her kicking a football after she had won a
patzer unrated exhibition tournament held in connection with the World
Cup of Football.

9. All of the above was designed to create in the minds of the chess-
playing public the impression that Susan Polgar was achieving great
things in chess, whereas in reality Polgar was retired as a chess
player and had not played an internationally rated game of chess since
2004 and had only played in two rated chess events since 1996.

10. In order to bring about the defeat of Sloan and the election of
Polgar, Goichberg caused to be appointed the most rabidly anti-Sam
Sloan and pro-Polgar moderators to the USCF Issues Forum. For example,
Herbert Rodney Vaughn was appointed as moderator. This same person,
Herbert Rodney Vaughn, had been allowed to sit in the 2006 delegates
meeting as a delegate from Ohio without being properly appointed, then
had tied up the delegates meeting with a slew of anti-Sam Sloan
motions including the aforementioned changes in the by-laws to make it
easier to recall a board member. Then this same Herbert Rodney Vaughn
had been allowed to camp out for a week in the USCFs office in
Crossville preparing a 400-page ethics complaint in color against Sam
Sloan using the USCFs office facilities and tying up office staff.
Then this same person was then made moderator of the USCF Issues Forum
just so that he could delete or remove any posting by a USCF member
favorable to Sloan or any posting embarrassing to Polgar and Truong
such as postings asking them whether they were married to each other
or not or what they did for a living of the names of the billion
dollar corporations that Truong claimed he had rescued and saved.

11. Goichberg did of all these things even though he knew from vast
experience that Polgar and Truong were scammers and that Truong was
the Fake Sam Sloan, because they were useful to his purposes at that
time. Goichberg believed that through this, Polgar would be elected
and Sloan would be defeated. Goichberg also believed that Truong would
be defeated. He felt that Polgar would be no danger to him as long as
she was alone on the board.

12. Late in the campaign, Polgar and Truong suddenly started attacking
Goichberg, even though Goichberg had been supporting Polgar up until
that point. This caused Goichberg to withdraw his support from Polgar.
Goichberg mailed 17,000 postcards to USCF members primarily attacking
Sloan but also making critical remarks about Polgar and Truong.
However, by then it was too late as Polgar and Truong were already so
far ahead that even after Goichberg had turned against them they were
elected anyway.

It has been written that a chess master must have a heightened sense
of danger. (I wish I could remember who first wrote that.) Goichberg
is a chess master, or at least he was when he was an active player, so
he should have realized that Sloan posed no danger to him but there
was considerable danger from Polgar and Truong. He should have
remembered that the Hungarian Chess Federation was convulsed by the
antics of Miss Polgar before she moved to America.

Goichberg thought that the result of the election would be that Sloan
would be replaced by Polgar, which would be a good exchange from the
point of view of Goichberg. What happened instead was that his friend
Schultz and Sloan were replaced by Polgar and Truong.

This should make Goichberg afraid that not only might the USCF
collapse but his own CCA might collapse as well. Goichberg should be
trying to rally the troops and solidify the opposition to Polgar and
Truong.

Instead, Goichberg, oblivious to the danger to himself, is now trying
to push through a crazy scheme to make Chess Life magazine not a part
of the regular USCF membership. Even though the Goichberg plan has
almost no support, he is pushing ahead with it relentlessly. Hanon
Russell has already put him on notice that he may be suing the USCF
over this and will likely stop paying the $150,000 per year he agreed
to pay under the contract.

Everybody has been telling him but Goichberg refuses to believe that
making the magazine optional will ultimately result in a complete stop
in the publication of the magazine and the collapse of the USCF, as
tens of thousands of members will decline to renew their memberships.

The likely outcome of this is that Goichberg will be thrown out and
Polgar and Truong will take control of the federation.

In other words, Bill Goichberg will be hoist by his own petard.

Sam Sloan




 
Date: 15 Jul 2008 14:55:30
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Goichberg is being hoist by his own petard
[quote="chessoffice"][size=150]When the EB discusses the ED's
performance at Dallas, we will have the audited financials. Why would
we base any decision on an unaudited preliminary worksheet?

Bill Goichberg[/size][/quote]

Because you will recall that last year the office reported a $57,000
loss. However, when the delegate's meeting took place two months later
it had been fixed up to a surplus of $3,000.

We are still wondering where this magical $60,000 appeared from.

Or, is this what Tim Just calls "the old shell game"?

I am truly surprised at you trying to hide, by saying that Donna's
posting of questions violates the AUG.

Sam Sloan


 
Date: 12 Jul 2008 08:49:40
From:
Subject: Re: Goichberg is being hoist by his own petard
On Jul 12, 12:57=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> Goichberg is being hoist by his own petard
>
> "Hoist by His Own Petard" is a term perhaps derived from Shakespeare

Sam, at least get the quote right:

For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar; and it shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.

Hamlet (act 3, scene 3, if I understand the ODQ's notation)


> which means to be caught in one's own trap.
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/59/4/hoistbyoneso.html
>
> http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist%20by%20your%20own%20petard.html
>
> What is happening to Bill Goichberg, current USCF President, is a
> perfect example of this.
>
> When I won election to the USCF Executive board in July 2006, even
> before I had taken office, Bill Goichberg went into a wild frenzy of
> trying to ensure that either I would not be able to take office, or I
> would not be able to be effective in office and/or would be defeated
> when I tried to be re-elected to the same office.
>
> Goichberg did all this, even though I was no threat whatever to his
> hegemony and indeed I had been his long-term supporter.
>
> Here are a few examples:
>
> 1. Sam Sloan was due to take office on August 13, 2006, so, starting
> on July 31, 2006 Bill Goichberg wrote a series of five letters to the
> USCF litigation attorney Michael Matsler asking Matsler how to stop
> Sam Sloan from taking office or how to remove him from office
> immediately after he had taken office. Matsler replied to each of
> these five letters and his legal bill was a bit less than $1000 for
> each letter, so the total bill paid by the USCF was a bit less than
> five thousand dollars.
>
> 2. At the beginning of the 2006 delegates meeting but just prior to
> the start of the regular meeting, a change in the by-laws was made and
> passed to effectively give the delegates the power to remove Sam Sloan
> from the board during the meeting. This was done just a moment before
> Sam Sloan was due to take office. However, the plan did not work
> because few delegates were willing to sign the petition to recall a
> person who had just been elected. Ironically, it is this provision
> originally passed to try to remove Sam Sloan from office which is
> planned to be used to try to remove Paul Truong, Susan Polgar and Bill
> Goichberg from office during the forthcoming meeting in Dallas. This
> is an example of Bill Goichberg being hoist by his own petard.
>
> 3. Bill Goichberg refused to appoint Sam Sloan as liaison to any
> committee. Usually the liaison appointments are divided up equally
> among the board members.
>
> 4. Bill Goichberg did not allow any of the first board meetings when
> Sam Sloan was on the board to be transcribed and broadcast, thereby
> violating the by-laws, so that the general membership could not find
> out what was really going on at those meetings.
>
> 5. Bill Goichberg refused to hold any of the board meetings in the
> Crossville office while Sam Sloan was on the board, since Sloan was
> constantly complaining about the waste and mismanagement of the
> Crossville office.
>
> 6. Bill Goichberg directed the Chess Life Editor not to publish the
> name of Sam Sloan in Chess Life magazine except as a routine listing
> of all board members, so that when Chess Life columnists submitted
> articles for publication with Sloan's name in them, that name was
> deleted by the editor.
>
> 7. In order to bring about Sloan's defeat for re-election, Goichberg
> groomed Polgar for a position on the board even though Goichberg knew
> that since 2002 Polgar and Truong had been scamming the federation out
> of large sums of money. In November 2003, while Goichberg had been
> Acting Executive Director, he had paid Polgar $13, 358.56 without
> telling the board about it, in defiance of a directive from Tim Hanke,
> who was then VP of Finance, who said =93do not pay them a penny=94. Also,
> Goichberg knew of a variety of other scams pulled by Polgar and
> Truong, including their demand that they be paid $50,000 for training
> the Womans Chess Olympiad Team, when that training was of no value and
> consisted of Paul Truong telling the woman chess grandmaster what to
> do during their menstrual periods.
>
> 8. Even though Goichberg knew that Polgar and Truong have a long
> history of scamming the federation, he allowed a picture of Polgar to
> appear in every issue of Chess Life magazine for a year and free ads
> for the Susan Polgar Foundation to appear in every issue of Chess Life
> magazine for a year. Also, Susan Polgar was given a cover story on
> Chess Life magazine of her kicking a football after she had won a
> patzer unrated exhibition tournament held in connection with the World
> Cup of Football.
>
> 9. All of the above was designed to create in the minds of the chess-
> playing public the impression that Susan Polgar was achieving great
> things in chess, whereas in reality Polgar was retired as a chess
> player and had not played an internationally rated game of chess since
> 2004 and had only played in two rated chess events since 1996.
>
> 10. In order to bring about the defeat of Sloan and the election of
> Polgar, Goichberg caused to be appointed the most rabidly anti-Sam
> Sloan and pro-Polgar moderators to the USCF Issues Forum. For example,
> Herbert Rodney Vaughn was appointed as moderator. This same person,
> Herbert Rodney Vaughn, had been allowed to sit in the 2006 delegates
> meeting as a delegate from Ohio without being properly appointed, then
> had tied up the delegates meeting with a slew of anti-Sam Sloan
> motions including the aforementioned changes in the by-laws to make it
> easier to recall a board member. Then this same Herbert Rodney Vaughn
> had been allowed to camp out for a week in the USCFs office in
> Crossville preparing a 400-page ethics complaint in color against Sam
> Sloan using the USCFs office facilities and tying up office staff.
> Then this same person was then made moderator of the USCF Issues Forum
> just so that he could delete or remove any posting by a USCF member
> favorable to Sloan or any posting embarrassing to Polgar and Truong
> such as postings asking them whether they were married to each other
> or not or what they did for a living of the names of the billion
> dollar corporations that Truong claimed he had rescued and saved.
>
> 11. Goichberg did of all these things even though he knew from vast
> experience that Polgar and Truong were scammers and that Truong was
> the Fake Sam Sloan, because they were useful to his purposes at that
> time. Goichberg believed that through this, Polgar would be elected
> and Sloan would be defeated. Goichberg also believed that Truong would
> be defeated. He felt that Polgar would be no danger to him as long as
> she was alone on the board.
>
> 12. Late in the campaign, Polgar and Truong suddenly started attacking
> Goichberg, even though Goichberg had been supporting Polgar up until
> that point. This caused Goichberg to withdraw his support from Polgar.
> Goichberg mailed 17,000 postcards to USCF members primarily attacking
> Sloan but also making critical remarks about Polgar and Truong.
> However, by then it was too late as Polgar and Truong were already so
> far ahead that even after Goichberg had turned against them they were
> elected anyway.
>
> It has been written that a chess master must have a heightened sense
> of danger. (I wish I could remember who first wrote that.) Goichberg
> is a chess master, or at least he was when he was an active player, so
> he should have realized that Sloan posed no danger to him but there
> was considerable danger from Polgar and Truong. He should have
> remembered that the Hungarian Chess Federation was convulsed by the
> antics of Miss Polgar before she moved to America.
>
> Goichberg thought that the result of the election would be that Sloan
> would be replaced by Polgar, which would be a good exchange from the
> point of view of Goichberg. What happened instead was that his friend
> Schultz and Sloan were replaced by Polgar and Truong.
>
> This should make Goichberg afraid that not only might the USCF
> collapse but his own CCA might collapse as well. Goichberg should be
> trying to rally the troops and solidify the opposition to Polgar and
> Truong.
>
> Instead, Goichberg, oblivious to the danger to himself, is now trying
> to push through a crazy scheme to make Chess Life magazine not a part
> of the regular USCF membership. Even though the Goichberg plan has
> almost no support, he is pushing ahead with it relentlessly. Hanon
> Russell has already put him on notice that he may be suing the USCF
> over this and will likely stop paying the $150,000 per year he agreed
> to pay under the contract.
>
> Everybody has been telling him but Goichberg refuses to believe that
> making the magazine optional will ultimately result in a complete stop
> in the publication of the magazine and the collapse of the USCF, as
> tens of thousands of members will decline to renew their memberships.
>
> The likely outcome of this is that Goichberg will be thrown out and
> Polgar and Truong will take control of the federation.
>
> In other words, Bill Goichberg will be hoist by his own petard.
>
> Sam Sloan