From: "'Ben Bednarz'" <BenFB <at> AOL <dot> COM>
Date: 12 jun 1999
Subject: Re: Scandal at the US Shogi Championship

In a message dated 6/12/99 12:50:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
g.fernandez <at> MINDSPRING <dot> COM writes:

<< Dear Sam,
 I regret to imform you that you are "beating a dead horse" and regardless
 of how hard or for how long you continue to beat it it will not come back
 to life. >>

Reading these messages between Sam, George, and others is like reading the
National Enquirer- you're never quite sure where truth ends and "creative
interpretation" begins.  I suppose I have better things to do than read this
stuff, but Shogi-L used to be soooo boring, and it's sure not now.

Sam seems to have a knack for putting himself into the middle of
controversies, but it was George's bureaucratic and autocractic letter that
has moved me to write.

George, it does no good to say only one person is unhappy.  Most peope don't
complain (publicly, at least) when they're unhappy.  The best way to meet
Sam's claims of general unhappiness is to poll your players.  Why not send a
questionaire to all your particpants?  You might even get some useful feeback
for next year.

You also seem to rely very heavily on the rules as justification for action.
This is probably why you have difficulty justifying the tie-break system in a
swiss tournament - if you can't explain the reason *why* things work that
way, people aren't going to be satisfied.  Instead of explaining everything
at the tournament in terms of "within the rules," I'd love to see your
*reasons* for the way things were handled.  Sam might be completely off his
rocker, but how would we know if you can't explain your logic and motivation?

One thing I will take exception to is claiming that Mr. Hayashi is more
influential in the success of American shogi than Larry.  I realize that New
Yorkers like to think of themselves as the center of the universe (you guys
really do deserve Donald Trump), but for the rest of the country, looking
back over the last fifteen years, my vote would be Larry.

Given Sam's past, I don't think you're going to get him to "bury the horse"
until he's ready.  Your best bet is to make sure all the other tournament
participants - and the American shogi community at large - are satisfied with
your actions.  Then you can ignore Sam.  He might be an outcast, but in chess
circles at least, that's considered normal.

Ben Bednarz