My resignation as FIDE Rep

[Vlad Drkulec]

Nah! I think I've been quite clear. Hal Bond didn't want to go full public, veins in our teeth all out war. We left it to him. I can't help it if he is incompetent in these matters. I offered to help like an elephant in a fine crystal store. Total Destruction is my middle name. We would have got some attention. Of course there is Uruguay which doesn't fit the narrative unless our supposed nemesis could travel through time.

[Peter McKillop]

Who controlled the investigation from the CFC end? Why it was Hal Bond. What a coincidence. Of course if I was involved, I might do a bald-headed version of Columbo and might start pulling at some threads which perhaps were better left buried not to be shared with Canadians. The whole Uruguay business and how that came about. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Vlad, I think Obfuscation must be your middle name.

[Brad Thomson]

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

...when first we practice to deceive. Chess is chess has always been chess will always be chess.

Well, our FIDE representative of longstanding and valued service has chosen to resign. This I find to be unfortunate. With respect to the President, Mitch McConnell would state that his conduct is certainly suspect, but his crimes do not demonstrably rise to the level of impeachment (which I think is impossible anyway, though I myself tried to have this changed many years ago when I was a governor and proposed an impeachment mechanism), so vote him out of office next election if that is your desire.

It will be interesting to see who runs for CFC President, and the other positions, next time there is a vote. Stay tuned!

[Vlad Drkulec]

This relates to one of the questions I've been asking: why is FIDE only now investigating this? Why wasn't an investigation under way in 2018 or 2019 at the CFC's insistence?

Who controlled the investigation from the CFC end? Why it was Hal Bond. What a coincidence. Of course if I was involved, I might do a bald-headed version of Columbo and might start pulling at some threads which perhaps were better left buried not to be shared with Canadians. The whole Uruguay business and how that came about. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

[Vlad Drkulec]

Hal wrote, "Following the 2020 CFC AGM, Drkulec tries to take my place at the FIDE Online General Assembly."

Why, Mr. Drkulec, did you attempt to pull this stunt? Do you recognize that this corroborates the suggestions that you have some guilt in all of this? Are you just the victim of bad luck? The victim of false appearances? Many of us may still have an open mind, but you had best explain. You would go a long way toward absolving yourself if you could legitimately explain to us why you attempted to usurp the position of the rightful FIDE delegate. Why did you do this?

It was no stunt. FIDE sent me an email which implied that I could attend the meeting. Hal's hatred for all things XXXXXXXX1 was getting very difficult to handle. In two years plus he had not made any progress on resolving the issue which was a FIDE issue and not a CFC issue. My purpose was to talk to people and get to the bottom of what was going on. Early on, I'm pretty sure there was an email in which I proposed going very public with this whole situation. I was safe in doing that because I had no FIDE ambitions. Hal did not want to do that because he did have FIDE ambitions. At one point in the run-up to the 2018 FIDE election Hal actually looked into running for FIDE president. The situation festered and got worse and worse when we got into the whole situation just before the AGM when Hal was looking for blood and full of rage which is not a good place to be. It causes one to make serious mistakes that might have been terminal for the CFC. There are people at FIDE who somehow amped up the anger and demanded that we deal with it on the CFC level.

It should be noted that I was on very friendly terms with Hal up until he tried to go after XXXXXXXXX1 just before the AGM. Hal wanted to bypass member discipline rules which require due process. I thought that was a very bad idea. Hal also wanted a public shaming. I thought that was a bad idea. Before things came to a boil we attended the Sport Tourism Canada conference together in Ottawa where I picked him up in Guelph and we drove up and talked for hours about this and many other things. We also went to Oshawa to meet with a Sport Tourism official from Durham region and for me to give a small talk about chess being a sport as part of a panel discussion on esports in their esports facility on a college campus.

Hal Bond turned on me not because of my actions with respect to this FIDE problem, but because I would not let him sink the CFC in his Ahabesque quest to destroy his Moby Dick.

[Brad Thomson]

Hal wrote, "Following the 2020 CFC AGM, Drkulec tries to take my place at the FIDE Online General Assembly."

Why, Mr. Drkulec, did you attempt to pull this stunt? Do you recognize that this corroborates the suggestions that you have some guilt in all of this? Are you just the victim of bad luck? The victim of false appearances? Many of us may still have an open mind, but you had best explain. You would go a long way toward absolving yourself if you could legitimately explain to us why you attempted to usurp the position of the rightful FIDE delegate. Why did you do this?

[Vlad Drkulec]

Hal Bond
Sat 2018-10-20 10:34 AM
To: CFC executive

I have gone thru my email updates to the Executive and none of them was copied to XXXX, and none of them was particularly nasty. So if they have anything it was either leaked or they are hacking into our emails. Even so, I am satisfied that I have kept my comments within the lines of civil discourse.

Dear Executive



My 37 hour journey home starts in 3.5 hours. No place like home!



Vlad- I considered paying the AIDEF dues of €200 but I was unsure of the story back home. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX



Makro was a brilliant Chair during the remaining agenda matters and this was appreciated by all. His parting words were a tad sharp- urging AD not to go down the road of exclusion and cronyism bribery and state influence which characterized the campaign. Makro was very proud of his clean campaign against Putin, Kasparov, USA etc.



The new regime does have a steep learning curve ahead and I choose to be optimistic. But there are haters among AD’s people and some who are also clueless. I do not include Arkady in this number so I hope his leadership prevails.



More later



Hal


From: Vladimir Drkulec <vdrkulec@hotmail.com>
Sent: October 19, 2018 7:58 PM
To: Fred McKim <fred_mckim@hotmail.com>; kris-egis@kris-egis.com; Chess Federation of Canada <admin@chess.ca>
Cc: 'Hal Bond' <halbond@sympatico.ca>; 'Lyle Craver' <lcraver@shaw.ca>; 'Mark Dutton' <markdutton@shaw.ca>; 'Christina Tao' <cfcyouthchess@gmail.com>; info@chess.ca
Subject: CFC board confidentiality and FIDE relations

There are a couple of things that we should probably update the board on.

Hal heard from XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and it appears that relations may be strained over the contents of an email or two sent by Hal. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX has also complained about an email sent by Hal from the airport in Batumi but I don't recall seeing any particularly inflammatory email from Hal at that point. The paranoid interpretation is that the KGB may be reading our emails and forwarding them to members of the Dvorkovich team. Alternatively maybe one of us is being careless. If one of us attaches a new name to an email chain we should cut out all discussion. The best way to be safe is to simply start a new email.

At this point it seems to me that Hal is the target of trumped up charges that have little to do with anything he has done. It is unclear if the problem generator is someone from Canada or there is someone in the background pulling the strings. It doesn't matter as FIDE at this point is a black box and we have to deal with what is coming out of it.

From the discussions I have had with XXXXXXX1 and XXXXXXXXXXX2 they were talking about $30k to $50k to Canada in the first year and perhaps something lower through the next three years. The first year would no doubt be goosed up to the retail value of some DGT product. I did not find the idea of paying money to existing tournaments like the Windsor Chess Challenge and various Montreal events to be conducive to anything useful to the CFC or chess in general. Also, they did imply that any promises might be overruled in favour of poorer federations like Haiti and Trinidad, Tobago etc. which would actually make more sense.

It might be a useful exercise to think what we would do with $50,000 to $20,000 in sponsorship money unencumbered with conditions. If we can come up with some good projects maybe we can make it happen within Canada without FIDE's help.

On the Hal front, we have let some deadlines pass and I don't think we should do anything. I am willing to take the lead on FIDE projects but I don't want to do it unless it proves to be absolutely necessary. There is lots of things that need to be done in Canada and Windsor that I would prefer to concentrate on.

I don't think we should take action against XXXXXXX1 as advocated by the XXXXXXX until we more fully understand what the situation is. If he is the only one orchestrating the campaign against Hal then sanctions might be in order but if he is only relaying information from someone higher up the food chain then we need to be cautious. Due process in everything we do whether for Hal or XXXXXXXXXX1.

I am going to be a bit distracted this next week as I take my mother and father to London where my mother will undergo surgery for an aneurysm. I will be back in Windsor on Thursday if everything goes to plan. I will have my computer and cell phone.


Vlad

[Neil Frarey]

. The 20,000 Euro figure is a fabrication.

Suuurre it is ... okey-dokey.

Vlad called me the same day and confirmed that he had been contacted by Vadim and Berik, and €20,000 from FIDE was being offered to the CFC if I am replaced.

This is gettin' better all the time...

[Vlad Drkulec]

All this was covered in the AGM. Hal didn't want us to make a public stink. The 20,000 Euro figure is a fabrication. I can't find any such statement.

[Peter McKillop]

I am unaware of any $20,000 amount. There was talk of chess sets, clocks, DGT boards, arbiter seminars, FIDE trainer seminars, and subsidies for tournaments.

That's 20,000 euros and, according to Hal, you advised him of this amount. But the big question remains unanswered. The CFC knew that something (they may not have had all the details) was wrong in the fall of 2018, pertaining to Hal and FIDE. Why wasn't the matter pursued by the CFC? Is it a common occurrence that an officer of a national federation will be under a cloud at FIDE without the national federation wanting to know if FIDE is justified?

[Vlad Drkulec]

Soooo....just another day at work at the sleazy old CFC?

"Hey CFC execs! FIDE just offered us €20,000 to get rid of Hal. But let's not get upset and demand an explanation for this outrageous behaviour. Let's just note that getting rid of Hal may not get us the desired outcome."

Based on what you've written, it doesn't seem to me that the CFC "supported Hal." Why not?

I am unaware of any $20,000 amount. There was talk of chess sets, clocks, DGT boards, arbiter seminars, FIDE trainer seminars, and subsidies for tournaments.

[Vlad Drkulec]

I would not read too much into the suspension with pay. Think of it as an enforced vacation for someone who works 16 hour days, seven days a week. They did not want it to be perceived that the people high up at FIDE were supporting one candidate or the other. Nothing more. Nothing less.

[Peter McKillop]

.........

Vlad called me the same day [i.e. Oct. 11, 2018 - P. McK.] and confirmed that he had been contacted by Vadim and Berik, and €20,000 from FIDE was being offered to the CFC if I am replaced.
.......

......

We supported Hal. We did not proceed with any application for the FIDE program and indeed getting rid of Hal would not have helped our application according to Berik. ......

Soooo....just another day at work at the sleazy old CFC?

"Hey CFC execs! FIDE just offered us €20,000 to get rid of Hal. But let's not get upset and demand an explanation for this outrageous behaviour. Let's just note that getting rid of Hal may not get us the desired outcome."

Based on what you've written, it doesn't seem to me that the CFC "supported Hal." Why not?

[Vlad Drkulec]

I am not so sure.

Although it is interesting that they have relieved Mr. Tsypin of his duties on the Management Committee. This must cause you some concern! We may suppose that FIDE deem or know him to be the deliverer of the doctored email. How will Mr. Tsypin explain to FIDE how he got the email, which of course he will claim was NOT doctored by himself? This may cause you problems! He may in fact claim that because he was sent a doctored email and mislead by it, he too is a victim in all of this. That would hurt! If he is quiet on the subject then likely FIDE will not give him his job back, but if he divulges the identity of the culprit then maybe FIDE will let him continue? Let us hope not! Will Tsypin tell lies to try to save his own skin, or tell the truth because this he believes is more likely to help him to save his skin? One thing is for sure, he will save his own ass first. He will not be worried over yours! He may well toss his cohort in cahoots under the bus in order to attempt to save himself. Oh dear!

Did you ever think about all of this, dude? How does it feel to sweat like a caged rat?

It might be cause for concern if FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich had not been in touch and explained the situation. The suspension with pay, had everything to do with our CFC election for FIDE rep and nothing to do with whatever occurred in the past. You are jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Tsypin got the email. I don't know that. In fact, I know nothing that Hal Bond didn't tell me. At this point, given his recent track record, that means that I know nothing about this situation.. If someone can lie about things that I know and understand and can document, they can lie about anything. Hal Bond didn't want me poking around in FIDE's business. As a result, I didn't poke around in FIDE's business. Once I started poking around in FIDE's business I learned many things.

My ass is fat and quite secure, though perhaps not as fat as when the pandemic started because I was recovering from an Achilles tendon tear which had seen me balloon up in weight. I am back in the weight range of some twenty years ago. I gained twenty pounds because of that injury but lost thirty during the pandemic. My balance is back which was something which I missed greatly over the eighteen months. The doctor said I would regain 95% of my function. I feel like I am at 100%.

This rat statement tells me more about you than you would ever intentionally reveal. I am not sweating at all. I would have been content just being the masters rep for a while. I didn't need any additional lines on my resume. I became president because I wanted better things for chess in Canada than what was occurring. I became president because I was asked to by people who are now jumping on the bandwagon because I wouldn't toe the line. I became president because of the kids who were being ill served by chess politicians who made every wrong move at every opportunity.

Big hint: I always do what I think is right for the CFC and its members. Some people are more interested in doing what helps them and their friends. I have been in much worse predicaments with my only weapon my trusty toothbrush. If you think you have me on the ropes, think again. Prepare to be schooled.

[Peter McKillop]

....

Anyway, now that FIDE is investigating there should be some resolution at the level where it should have been investigated from the beginning.

This relates to one of the questions I've been asking: why is FIDE only now investigating this? Why wasn't an investigation under way in 2018 or 2019 at the CFC's insistence?