Jim West On Chess: Sloan versus Polgar and Truong

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Sloan versus Polgar and Truong

Unfortunately, the title of this post does not refer to a game of chess between Sam Sloan and the consultation team of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. It pertains to a lawsuit filed by Sloan against Polgar and Truong in federal court, alleging that they used electronic means to harass and annoy him.

In this year's USCF executive board election, Sloan was ousted from his seat while Polgar and Truong were elected. Sloan is seeking a new election, as well as punitive damages.

That's the bad news! Mark Weeks of About.com thinks that there is a silver lining inside the cloud.

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov