There's a nasty little brouhaha involving GM Susan Polgar and her husband, FM Paul Truong, on one side and Sam Sloan on the other. I've read a bit about this (this BCC post is a good place to start for those who want to go slogging through this mudhole), but have steadfastly avoided the temptation to comment about this. (The gist, in a sentence, is that Sloan accuses Polgar and/or Truong of writing inflammatory posts in his (Sloan's) name on various chess websites.)
Unfortunately, I discovered yesterday that Sam Sloan decided to drag me into this dispute by blatantly misrepresenting something I wrote on this blog a couple of years ago. Some of you may recall that I wrote a post (back on September 5, 2005) called "Go, Nona!". The post celebrated some recent accomplishments by and accolades for the former women's world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili, and en passant I took the opportunity to express a critical opinion of the sometime claim by Susan Polgar to be the first woman to earn the grandmaster title. (See the post for details.)
The result was a slew of comments, and then another big collection when I created a new post for the purpose of allowing still more reader feedback on the same topic. Almost all of them - all pro-Polgar - came from the same IP, as I detailed in a third post. Did I identify the person? NO. Here's what I wrote:
[M]y "many" respondents shared not only exceptionally similar viewpoints and ways of expressing them; it turns out, by a no doubt astonishing coincidence, that they share a common IP address as well. In short, all of the above are the same person, or at most, a very small group of people sharing the same computer or local network. It certainly isn't a collection of diverse, independent people from around the globe; rather, it's just a cheap stunt by (probably) one individual who misguidedly thinks this will improve Susan Polgar's reputation and help her cause.
That should be clear enough, but to my horror, Sam Sloan has written the following:
Dennis Monokroussos reports that Polgar and Truong have posted to his blog under 36 different fake names. He has banned all 36.
What???? In addition to the strange "reports", which makes it sound like something that just happened (as opposed to a series of two-year-old events), the claim that I single out and blame Polgar and Truong is absolutely, positively false. Sloan next gives the URL of the third Chess Mind post mentioned above (where I never offer any names for the culprit(s)), and then continues
This happened after Monokroussos posted an article entitled "Go, Nona!" in which he celebrated Nona Gaprindashvili as the first chess grandmaster.
Gaprindashvili would have had to play in St. Petersburg 1914 to receive that honor. Let's try this: she was the first woman to receive the grandmaster title.
The 36 fake posters replied that Nona Gaprindashvili was not a real grandmaster. Susan Polgar was. Monokroussos found it strange that all 36 posters that said that claimed to be in different parts of the world, yet they all had the same IP address. He reports, "overweening Polgarites in the past were all just this same person".
Again not quite right, though my rebuttals here concern minor points. First, there were more than 36 posters - that figure applies to the second post. Second, the quotation is from a comment of mine to the post - it wasn't part of my "report". As I stated in the quotation above (this post's fourth paragraph), it might have been one person, but it might have been several. I don't know.
In any event, returning to the most important point, I make no statement about the identity of the person in question. If, therefore, any of you know Mr. Sloan or post to his site please ask him to change his post to align it with the truth. Likewise, Mr. Sloan, if you're reading this, please make the proper corrections.
Blecch to the whole lousy situation.
I've read mr. Sloan's shall we say rantings before. Like some politicians (including G.W. Bush actually but for him it's because of my too opposing political views), I just ignore him as if he were speaking Japanese.
Let's avoid political jabs against specific targets - the next thing you know some conservative will making passing cracks about liberals, and then the blog will descend into mayhem.
My apologies for any inconvenience that this has/will cause you.
There are at least 3 other chess activists unconnected to Sloan who are interested parties, and who will probably have more impact than Sloan. One is an attorney who claims to have filed a separate, criminal complaint with authorities (I'm not sure in which state). He argued in favor of Sloan's candidacy but other than that has no connection, as far as I know. Another is a USCF volunteer Web administrator who claims to have uncovered the IP address evidence purportedly linking Truong to all the identity-theft posts, that's at the heart of the Sloan lawsuit and the whole brouhaha. And the third is Ray Gordon, a sleazy publisher who's been on the outskirts of chess for a long time (he's still active in the rgcp cesspool, for instance), but who seems to have no connection with Sloan beyond that they were both victimized by the same string of identity-theft posts.
I'm having a hard time understanding what mr. Sloan hopes to accomplish right now. To be elected to the board? After all this (and what is surely yet to come)? I really don't think so. As it appears to me right now, he is the one out there doing the damage to someone else's public image. That said, I do not doubt there are people out there that would like to hurt him by posting under his name. (By the way, it doesn't really help if he posts unregistered as well)
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Essence of Mottershead Report.
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http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1192490748.shtml
I admit that it is true. Dennis Monokroussos never said that it was Polgar and Truong who did it. He merely wrote that the person who did it was a "Polgarite".
[Comment abridged by the management.]
Sam Sloan
Jon Jacobs: Thanks for filling out the details.
Sam Sloan: I provided the links for those interested in checking out the controversy; I am not interested in having it continue here. The sole point of my post was to note that I did not claim, or even hint, that either Polgar or Truong comment-spammed my blog - as you have acknowledged. That the person was a "Polgarite" is hardly evidence, as she has many fans and supporters. If one or both of them is found guilty in your suit, I hope you can achieve suitable redress; if they're innocent, I hope their reputations will be restored. But that battle is for the courts, not my blog, and you're not welcome to write more comments like the one above (about to be edited) - not here.
I have the FIDE rules for 1982 which state that the Woman's World Champion would be awarded the IM title only, not the GM Title. The GM Title then required two GM norms plus a rating of 2450.
You should try to find the rules in effect in 1978, when Nona Gaprindashvili was awarded the title. I am almost sure that there was no rating requirement back then. It was well known that Nona Gaprindashvili was awarded the GM title because of winning Lone Pine 1977 which was the strongest tournament held in the world that year. Maia Chiburdanidze was not awarded the GM title until 1987, which was 9 years after she had become Woman's World Champion, so being Woman's World Champion was of no relevance prior to that time.
Sam Sloan
Probably Sloan meant to say Lone Pine was the strongest OPEN torunament of 1977, which appears correct.
Disclaimer: I do not intend by this post to denigrate Nona Gaprindashvili, her great tournament performance or her well-earned and awarded GM title, nor to compare her unfavorably to certain other female players.