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A Chessville Special Report Polgar Quits USCF, USA Shocking is not an adequate word for this announcement from Lubbock Texas, home of Susan Polgar, that she is resigning all her chessic positions in the USA - the Chairmanship of the USCF has already been stripped from her by President Bill Goichberg, and now she exits from the board too.
In a telephone interview with her husband, the much buffeted Mr. Paul Truong, he added several additional points; that GM Polgar will elect to represent Hungary in future Olympiads, and possibly as soon as the Dresden event.
The Executive Director of USCF, Mr. Bill Hall, has elected to neither confirm nor deny this report. Other board members were unavailable for comment at time of going to press.
Truong went on to say that she has accepted the offer to be the Official
Ambassador of the 2008 Olympiad in Dresden, and would be in charge of all
the English speaking media. During the process of deciding to do so,
she felt that Europe was her true home and also the true home of chess, and
having given it her best efforts here for so many years, still thinks the
future may hold great prospects for chess in USA, but at the moment it
remains ‘a sleeping beauty’. Leaving the country with her new husband she will re-settle in Hungary, at the relatively remote township of Hodmezovasarhely in the southeast of the country, where land and property is still relatively inexpensive and therefore, where a first-rate international chess school for girls may be an economic possibility. There is a relatively famous 13th century castle in the region for which a bid has already been placed. “But you won’t have to swim the moat” quipped Truong, since “it was re-landscaped into extensive gardens and parks in mid 18th century”.
He went on to explain that the original intention was as a retreat for visual artists and musicians, and the ‘chalets’ in the park are actually wonderful stone-built studios constructed during the high cultural period of the Austrio-Hungarian empire, but now where future chess students can seriously study the game without fear of interruption from an increasingly noisy and invasive world. “The estate and buildings were previously (1732 to 1848) home to a Catholic institution for Nuns, and so serious female sensitivity and concentration is already a part of this site” Truong said.
“Even GMs”, continued Truong, “need peace and quiet, and perhaps we will attract more top women players who wish to seriously improve their game to the highest levels, and also share the benefit with girls and young women?” He said he was “very excited” about their prospects, and also, “he knows were the money grows,” which this reporter took as a reference to serious financial backing. Truong declined to be more specific, though in more general conversation he had mentioned ‘serious movie deals.’ Truong will also be the assistant to GM Polgar as well as the Official Photographer for the Dresden Olympiad. He said he has never lived in Europe, and only visited for business purposes. “If you can move from New York to Texas,” Truong said, “then you can move from Lubbock to Hodmezovasarhely in the very center of old Europe.
Some further comments and replies were added by the fast-speaking Truong – after this writer had overcome his shock – he asked after when both Polgar and Truong would cease their current chess duties and positions in the USA – which received the reply, ‘on Susan’s birthday’, which I believe is three weeks hence, near the end of April 2008.
After putting down the telephone with Mr. Truong, this writer is still in shock after writing this report. America has lost perhaps the best chess presentation duo it ever had - perhaps the world ever had? I believe many people thought it strange for Susan Polgar to enter chess politics at all, and it seems to me that she has been rejected – or better said, that her spirit and sheer positive energy for chess is rejected – and has acted (over reacted?) as a woman scorned!
Phil Innes Editor: Later in the day we received the linked confirmation from Ms. Polgar.
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That
would, some would say, be an expected event after a troubled experience at
America’s chess federation. But the grandmaster has also decided to
switch back her federation to the Hungarian one – and that is a sad story
indeed for chess in America.
Questioned
on why this absolute change, Truong replied, “she is so fed up with dirty
politicians within the USCF that she intends to lead from the front again,
by actually demonstrating the qualities which chess has, and that has become
impossible at USCF, and therefore in this country.”
