Well, Susan Polgar has done it again. Her collegiate team has once again won the intercollegiate team championship. How many years has she now dominated with her teams?
Susan has put together highly successful teams now from when she began in Texas to her latest at Webster College in Missouri.
People can and do say what they want, but all must admit that Susan Polgar knows her Chess and knows how to train in Chess.
I applaud her for her successes.
She does have the ability to attract good chess players to the Webster program. There is no question that she and her husband can charm people. But, not everyone is charmed. Wesley So and what he went through two years ago at the US Championship comes to mind. As we found out digging into the truth of her foundation, her marital status regarding Truong and Trong’s two bankruptcies prior to The Troubles litigation, all that glitters is not gold.
A typically unnecessary negative comment
Well Brian, you must admit that it takes more than charm to produce winning Chess teams over the many years that she has. And it goes to quite a bit of time before her Webster position.
She also has to be teaching and training to have these people produce the high quality Chess and results year after year.
I kindly suggest that if you do not have anything nice to say, just do not post in this thread.
I agree that she and Truong do run a good program. That said, I kindly suggest that you be a realist and admit that she has not trained these people to the level they were at when they were recruited to Webster. Webster is also a lower tier university where the academics are not as rigorous nor the students at as high of a level as in some of the other major universities having chess teams that compete against Webster. I suspect this makes it a bit easier to attract top chess players as opposed to scholars who also play top level chess. Reality is what it is, Ron. Ask Wesley.
The reality is that it takes a lot more than simply recruiting to get the results that Susan has consistently obtained over the years.
You cannot accurately describe the people and program by one example person.
Just admit that Susan has done an exceptional job and move on.
Posting about Polgar and expecting a friendly rejoinder simply lacks social awareness. That has been demonstrated over many years of Forums threads and negative reactions. IMO, expecting Polgar support in the Forums (even for “excellence”) is dense at best or trolling at worst.
You are probably right that the folks here are incapable of seeing the name Polgar and not behaving childishly (oops, I meant negatively). I do not accept the premise that we should avoid an otherwise appropriate topic because people might behave badly. That is not trolling.
If any other coach had the same results someone would have made a post similar to the original post. And rightly so.
I doubt that “… someone would have made a post similar to the original post.” It is rare to see truly innocent congratulatory posts made in this forum to start a thread. When I saw the original post in this thread, it struck me as deliberately provocative. The wording (for instance, “People can and do say what they want, but …”) is one of the tip-offs.
So, it doesn’t surprise me or alarm me that another forum contributor was provoked.
Not that I don’t agree with the general sentiment. The success of Webster’s teams speaks for itself. Best of luck to all involved.
Bruce
The original post was only made to be laudatory of the success.
I certainly was not trolling and there was no intent to provoke.
To my knowledge this string of successes by Susan Polgar is unprecedented.
It is noteworthy and that is the note I made.
I haven’t described the "“people and program” with the example of one person. She’s done a good job of recruiting top ranked chess players to a less than third tier university. Playing chess on scholarship with the academic demands of a Webster level university is undoubtedly less pressure filled than playing chess in the academic environment of past President’s Cup and Pan Am winners like the University of Chicago, U. of Toronto, Yale, Harvard, NYU and Manhattan Borough Community College. An interesting title winning shift to UTD, UMB, TTU and Webster (all offering chess scholarships) occurred starting five or six years after the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s also not clear to me how many of the top academic universities even offer chess related scholarships.
It simply is what it is, Ron with recruitment being the key. In the past decade the recruiting appears to have also broadened to other chess powers like India and China as well. I would be curious to know, of those colleges and universities that give chess scholarships, what the graduation rate is of their chess scholarship students. Probably relatively high compared to basketball.
I worked the PanAm as the floor chief. There were 35 different FIDE flags represented amongst the 240+ competitors. The new entrant to the high rating level teams this year was St Louis University.
The main scholarship schools are UT Dallas, UT Rio Grande Valley (formerly Brownsville), U Maryland Baltimore County, Webster, Texas Tech, and I think now SLU.
Qualifications to participate in the Pan Ams requires evidence of enrollment at least half time with satisfactory progress towards a degree and a cumulative GPA of at least 2 of 4. High rated players are held to a higher standard. They must be enrolled full time. (I’m not sure if they have a higher GPA requirement - but some of the scholarship schools have an internal requirement for a higher GPA) . Statements rare required from school registrars and all players must submit proof of eligibility to a sub committee of the college chess committee for review. They were doing these reviews right up to an hour before event started. At least two players were turned away.
Nothing that isn’t already known. There’s been no suggestion that any players were not properly enrolled. They get recruited and enrolled. Thus, they are eligible to play. What’s your point?
You perhaps missed the fact that they must show PROOF of eligibility and the committee reviewed each one, Since they did a thorough enough job to rule two players out there is clearly some rigor.
I don’t really share the view that Ms. Polgar is evil incarnate, but at the same time it does not seem very impressive to “lead” a team of 2750s to victory over a field they outrate by about a hundred points. At least to me, it is not all that surprising that schools diverting resources specifically to attract top chess players would dominate those who don’t.
Given the toxic circumstances surrounding So’s departure, one would also be lead to think that the environment is not all it’s trumped up to be. It is also not clear that players are actually improving all that much while at Webster, judging from rating trajectories.
For me, stories like the University of Illinois’ are far more interesting and impressive. Nonetheless, Ms. Polgar’s fundraising abilities are obviously praiseworthy, and more money in chess is always a plus. It just seems that this is a very different skillset than the OP is praising.
I didn’t miss anything, but you clearly did. The point I made is that the most recently successful US college/university chess teams rely significantly on recruiting with scholarships that many of our top tier universities do not provide. As long as the foreign student is properly enrolled at an institution, they can generally play chess or any other sport. When a university is able to recruit an IM or GM to its chess team via a scholarship, it puts the focus of team building on seeking the players. I also don’t recall any of Webster’s players having been declared ineligible.
It is just informational. I doubt 100% of the readers are aware of the eligibility process.
Poor Nick Saban. His teams are better than anyone else’s because he recruits better talent. Anyone could win with his players, he’s not really a good coach.
The fact is that the highest rated doesn’t always win just as the best sports team doesn’t always win. So some recognition is due.
There is no question that the six schools that offer scholarships have a huge advantage over all the others, but for one of those six to consistently win is still an accomplishment. And recruiting is not a side job - it is a big part of the job.
Now personally I do have a problem with allowing schools to field several teams. That exacerbates the disparity and allows those schools to stockpile talent. But it also allows such schools to offer educational opportunities that might not exist for those players otherwise, so it’s not all bad. You can’t compare collegiate chess to any other collegiate activity. Nowhere else can you earn material prize money in your sport and still compete collegiately in that same sport?
Apples and oranges. College football has strict rules regarding recruitment and what can be offered to team members, precisely to avoid these types of issues. College chess has no such protections, and thus it should not be surprising that the championships go to those who can afford them.
Of course, Webster still deserves credit for winning championships, but when a literally world-class team cleans up significantly worse competition, unbridled praise is not my first reaction. But I acknowledge this may partially be some form of bitterness.
Few things in life are black or white. Just about everything is a shade of gray. The problems Susan has caused have been enumerated elsewhere, and are real, but she has done some good things as well, and should get credit for them.
A High School student friend of mine went to a tournament at Webster U which offered a full four year scholarship to the winner. My friend tied for first, but came second on tie-breaks. According to the rules of the competition the other player who tied my friend got the scholarship, and my friend got nothing. Susan subsequently OK’d a second full four year scholarship for my friend. My friend is a good player - rated 2100+ - but not a GM and unlikely ever to be one. He was never going to make Webster’s A team, or their B team either for that matter. That was a magnanimous gesture on Susan’s part.
Give credit where credit is due.