| Vince Hart 2005-01-30, 3:44 am |
| When I first approached you about this issue Kevin, you declined to
answer certain questions on confidentiality grounds. I have never
pursued those questions with you again.
I really wish you could explain why it took so long to figure out that
your Life Master title was effected by the bogus tournaments. During
the second half of 1999, I see five results that impacted your rating
(not counting the tournament where you played a single game against a
sub-1000 player). There was one very solid master performance, three
expert level performances, and one performance in the A range. And
yet, your rating went from 2184 to a peak of 2314. How could you not
have realized that the bogus tournaments were having an impact? What
was it that finally caused you to realize a year and a half later that
your Life Master title was tainted?
As far as the 2001 Denker qualifier goes, I will certainly argue that
your son should not have been invited if he could not meet the
applicable ratings criteria in effect at the time but for a manipulated
rating. You seemed to argue the same thing with respect to Stan
Vaughan's student. More importantly, I would argue very stridently
that it was a decision that should have been made by an unbiased ICA
Denker committee rather than an ICA President with conflicts of
interest. In any case, the fact that you chose to put him on board one
ahead of three players who did meet the applicable criteria seems
completely irrelevant to me. Do you think his performance at the event
demonstrated that he belonged there?
If you do not feel comfortable revealing them, I do not wish to know
the names of the players whose ratings the USCF decided to correct.
However, I wonder whether you could tell me how big the impacts were on
their ratings. They must have been much bigger than the three hundred
point floor boost that did not warrant adjustment.
Vince Hart
|