Bill Goichberg named Executive Director, USCF Press Release

[joeyboy]

My thanks to Richard Peterson for pointing out the official USCF Press
Release announcing the appointment of Bill Goichberg as USCF Executive
Director. I had forgotten that Richard is such a big fan of Bill. The press release is posted at

And yes, it is true. Bill Goichberg was the first person ever to hold scholastic tournaments. When I was a kid there were no such events and for this I am deeply sorry.

That was the Olympiad held in Israel. The USSR and the entire Soviet
Bloc boycotted that Olympiad and the USA won easily.

I had not realized this. I was the second most active player in the US in 1964. I played 116 rated games that year. I was living in
California and played in many tournaments there. Then, in July 1964, (after a brief stopover in Roosevelt, Utah) I hitchhiked to the East
Coast where I played in the US Junior, the US Open, the New Jersey
Open and in the Marshall and Manhattan Chess Club preliminaries.

In that year, I defeated Sal Matera twice and I defeated Bruce
Pandolfini. I also at about that time defeated Eugene Meyer but I believe that that game was in January, 1965.

In that year, 1964, John Blackstone was the most active player in the
US. He played in almost exactly the same tournaments as I did, including the California tournaments plus the US Open and the US
Junior, but he also played in the California Closed Championship to which I had not qualified and thus he played nine more games than I did.

I did not realize that Bill Goichberg only started playing tournament chess in 1961. Here is my 1962 game against him. It is not a good game, but is of some historical interest. I used the opening Bill played against me to defeat Walter Browne in the 1967 American Open.

[Event "Eastern Open Championship"] [Site "Washington, DC"] [Date "1962.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Goichberg,Bill"] [Black "Sloan,Sam"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B52"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.O-O Nc6 6.Qe2 Nf6
7.Rd1 e5 8.c3 Rc8 9.Na3 a6 10.d4 cxd4 11.cxd4 Qc7 12.Bg5 Be7
13.Rac1 exd4 14.Nxd4 O-O 15.Nf5 h6 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 17.Rxd6 Bg5
18.Rcd1 Rfd8 19.h4 Rxd6 20.Rxd6 Be7 21.Qg4 g6 22.Rxc6 bxc6
23.Nxe7+ Qxe7 24.Qxc8+ Kg7 25.Qxc6 Qxh4 26.Nc4 Qf4 27.Nd6 Qg4
28.Qc3+ Kh7 29.Qf3 Qg5 30.Qxf7+ Kh8 31.Qf8+ Kh7 32.Qf7+ Kh8
33.Qe8+ Kg7 34.Qd7+ Kg8 35.Qc8+ Kg7 36.Qc7+ Kg8 37.Qc4+ Kg7 38.e5 a5 39.e6 Qe5 40.Qc3 Qxc3 41.bxc3 Kf6 42.Nb7 Kxe6 43.Nxa5 Kd5
44.Kf1 Kc5 45.Ke2 Kb5 46.Nb3 Kc4 47.Kd2 h5 48.a4 g5 49.a5 Kb5
50.c4+ Kc6 51.a6 h4 52.c5 g4 53.Na5+ Kxc5 54.a7 h3 55.gxh3 gxh3
56.a8=Q h2 57.Qh1 1-0

Sam Sloan.

[royalboiler]

Second the U.S. victory in 1976 in Haifa was actually not which easy. In all probability it won by only a half point over the Netherlands, that it lost to in Round 6 by a score of
1.5-2.5.

In the 13th and final generously round, the U.S. beat Wales, 3.5-0.5 and the Netherlands (Timman, Sosokno, Doner, Ree, Ligterink and Kuiujpers) could only defaet
Filnand (Wetserinen, Rantanen, Raasste, Kanko, Saren and Vahtera) by a score of
3-1. That was the margin of victory..