Tom Brownscombe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tom Brownscombe is a USCF rated chess master and poker player living in the United States.

Brownscombe was Scholastic Coordinator for the United States Chess Federation from 2000 to 2003. He was appointed to that position after Beatriz Marinello resigned in protest in 2000. In August, 2003 Beatriz Marinello was elected President of the USCF and her very first act as President was to fire Tom Brownscombe.

Brownscombe was so distraught at this that he immediately went to Las Vegas, Nevada where, the following week, he won $55,000 in the World Series of Poker.

While working as scholastic coordinator for the USCF, Brownscombe made a controversial ruling that Rusudan Goletiani was prohibited from competing in the US Chess Championship, after Goletiani has arrived in the US in 2000 at age 19. Because of this ruling, Goletiani was not allowed to compete for the US Championship for four years until 2004 and when she was finally allowed to compete she promptly won the US Championship.