Talk:Paul Truong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
Vietnam Portal

This article is part of WikiProject Vietnam, an attempt to create a comprehensive, neutral, and accurate representation of Vietnam on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chess, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of chess. For more information, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Chess Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as Low-Importance on the importance scale.
Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Paul Truong, has edited Wikipedia as
ChessInquisitor (talk · contribs)

Contents

[edit] Verification by the subject

The facts listed are correct.

I am going to tread lightly here, because I'm a big fan of Susan's, and I know that Paul is Susan's business manager. However, there are huge problems with this article. There is basically no evidence offered for the vast majority of the content, except that User:ChessInquisitor says it is correct.
I don't doubt that Paul Truong knows his own life history — assuming that it is indeed Paul Truong — but this does not meet Wikipedia's standards for verifiability and a neutral viewpoint, based on citable sources.
A look through the edit history of this article suggests that an awful lot of the editors who've contributed to it are people who have interacted with Paul Truong on a personal level. I am wondering, frankly, whether there is enough reliable published material on Paul Truong to make up a legitimate Wikipedia article that complies with WP:NPOV, WP:VER, and WP:NOR.Marc Shepherd 12:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe chessinquisitor is R. Mitchell. He's done project with Truong in the past. I don't know all the details but most of the contents look pretty decent so far.

Then why does the infobox at the top of this page say, "The subject of this article, Paul Truong, has edited Wikipedia as ChessInquisitor"? Also, the only Wikipedia article ChessInquisitor has ever edited is Susan Polgar. Marc Shepherd 19:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

ChessInquisitor is Rob Mitchell. He worked with Paul Truong and Susan Polgar on the Russia vs. USA match in 2005. This match was televised worldwide. He was the one who wrote their bio for the show. That is why he knows their info. Rob Mitchell is not a chess person. He does not know too many significant chess players. Juan K.


[edit] Paul Truong is ChessInquisitor

There can be no real doubt that Paul Truong is ChessInquisitor. It fits the pattern. Paul Truong is ChessPromotion on the USCF Issues Forum and is ChessMarketing on the FIDE-chess Yahoo Group. He never signs his real name.

Rob Mitchell is a chess internet gadfly. Not much is known about him, especially since there are 36 USCF members named Rob Mitchell and he will not say which one he is. However, it is certain that he is not Paul Truong. Sam Sloan 02:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I am new here. However, I think it is very wrong to allow someone like Mr. Sam Sloan to edit the biography of the people whom he has problems with. People's professional reputation is on the line. You can verify my identity on my website susanpolgar.com or you can contact me directly at susanpolgar@aol.com. Mr. Sloan has ZERO credibility in my book. He has been censured by his fellow board members many times for unethical conducts. I know Paul Truong since 1985 and I can absolutely confirm a lot of the information. Please feel free to contact me if you have any question.

Thank you! Susan Polgar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 01:32, 8 May 2007.

I just got a message in my email. I apologize for not knowing the procedure here. I just do not think that it is right for people like Mr. Sloan to come on here and purposely post false information to harm others. Thank you again and sorry if I messed up with the procedure.

Best wishes, Susan Polgar www.SusanPolgar.com www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com Susan Polgar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 01:37, 8 May 2007.


Sorry, it's me again. I just read the bio again and everything is correct. Am I allowed to verify it since I am involved in many of the activities listes? I am not sure what is disputed and what does it mean.

Thanks again! Susan Polgar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 01:42, 8 May 2007.

I haven't time to look into this, but there may be some biographies of living persons issues here, so I'd ask everyone to tread very gently, and to remember in particular that when a new user deletes something concerning a living person, we have to be extra careful not to bite. Unexplained blanking may be vandalism, but is often not. Musical Linguist 07:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] National Chess Champion of Vietnam 11 times?

It seems that this biography has no sources at all, and that the likely source of most, if not all of it, is Paul Truong himself. For example, it says that he was 11-times "National Champion" of Vietnam. He was born in 1965 and, according to the biography, fled Vietnam as a boat-person in 1979. That makes him 13 or 14 when he left Vietnam. To be 11-times national champion by age 14, he would have had to have won it the first time at age 2 or 3, and not missed a year until he became a boat-person. Truong claims elsewhere that his family was hiding out from the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 until it fled in 1979, but he still managed to win the "national chess championship" of Vietnam (now united, with its capital in Hanoi) during those years. None of this makes any sense. What chess organization was supposedly awarding this "National Champion of Vietnam" title? During much of this time, the country was at war and divided between North and South Vietnam. Where and when were the championship tournaments held? Vietnam was not admitted to FIDE until 1988, and the national organization that was admitted is headquartered in Hanoi. What record is there, or could there be, of any of these championships? This information could have come only from Truong himself. Accordingly, I'm removing this claim unless somebody produces some documentation of its truth.

[edit] SPICE

How do I add this link to SPICE? http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/529932/ It goes to another link at this moment. Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs)

I went ahead and added it, see WP:FOOT for how to add footnote citations. The wiki software will let you add a link to the external links section just by putting the url there (preferably with an explanation of what it is), but the editorial guidelines about when it's ok to do that are fairly strict (we get a lot of spam on Wikipedia) and links that don't meet the guidelines tend to get removed. For a link like that one which documents something mentioned in the article, it's better to add it as a citation than to just drop it into the external links section. See WP:EL for the external links guidelines. There are also some good links in the welcome template that someone left on your user page, about how to edit here. 75.62.6.237 07:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Has Paul Truong won 11 national championships?

Paul Truong in http://www.chesscafe.com/text/polgar14.pdf (2003) says that in Vietnam, "I won the first National Junior (under 21) Championship when I was only 5 years old". He goes on to say he won three more National Junior (Under-21) Championships, plus seven "National Championships", starting at age eight.

Randall Hough in Chess Life (Sep 1986, p. 26; see http://www.samsloan.com/truong-chess-life.pdf) quotes USCF Master Kenneth Clayton saying that Paul learned chess at age 6, and at age eight "won the closest thing that Vietnam had to a national championship by finishing behind only Clayton in a tournament at the sports club."

Note: the Chess Life URL points to a scanned image on Sam Sloan's web site. Although Sam has a history of inaccuracies, especially on forums, this does appear to be a complete, undoctored image of two pages of Chess Life, and I give it full credence.

These two sources are mostly consistent, on the surface. However, if we believe the Chess Life article, Kenneth Clayton was around Paul at the time he won at least three "National Junior (Under-21) Championships". That certainly sounds like something Kenneth would have mentioned to Randall and that Randall would have published. But it was not published. So I doubt that Paul won three or four "National Junior (Under-21) Championships". Maybe Paul finished ahead of other youth at four tournaments at the sports club in that era. Kenneth may well have left Vietnam after the mentioned tournament, so this logic does not apply to the adult tournaments.

One principle of weighing evidence is to give more credence to statements made closer to the time of the event, than to statements made later. The Chess Life source is 17 years closer to the event, and deserves more credence.

I had previously replaced a "claims to have won 11 national championships" with "says..." (based on the first source). Then some anonymous person deleted the whole sentence. I am going to reinstate the sentence along the lines of the quote from the second source.

DavidForthoffer 05:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

David,
Paul never made the claim of 11 national championships in Vietnam. This was stated by Sam Sloan, not Paul. Paul always told me the same thing back in 1985, even before the Randy Hough article and I know who Ken Clayton is. In addition, he won 4 national junior titles, not 3. I made that change. (Susan Polgar) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 14:56, June 18, 2007 (UTC)

It is utterly astounding that Susan Polgar now states here that Paul Truong has never stated that he is an 11-time national champion. That claim of being an 11-time national champion is on the back cover blurb of the book "A World Champion's Guide to Chess" by Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. ISBN 0812936531 http://www.amazon.com/World-Champions-Guide-Chess-Step/dp/0812936531

This claim is also in his online biography on US Chess Live: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:debJJ8m8zagJ:www.gamesparlor.com/crowns/viewProfile.jsp%3Fhome%3DUK%26handle%3DTruong+Paul-Truong+11-time-National-Champion

The claim was also made in a CBS News interview of Polgar and Truong. http://wcbstv.com/video/?id=79985@wcbs.dayport.com

In addition, the claim is made in several autobiographies of himself that have been posted by Paul Truong on his AOL home page: http://web.archive.org/web/20050125234111/http://hometown.aol.com/paultruong/page2.html

The claim is also made in an article by Susan Polgar published in Chess Cafe: "Paul is also an 11-time National Champion." -- Susan Polgar http://www.chesscafe.com/text/polgar37.pdf

Now that this claim has been proven to be false and indeed impossible, Susan Polgar is trying to back out of all of these claims and to made the preposterous claim that all these statements were all forgeries by me, Sam Sloan.

By the way, Susan Polgar also claims that she did not write the book "Queen of the King's Game" and that the statements in the book critical of numerous chess players were not made by her. However, I have an autographed copy of the book that she proudly gave me due to my contributions to the book and she seemed to be quite proud of the book at the time. Sam Sloan 22:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Sloan, why don't you take time to read what I wrote. You went around telling people something I did not say. You have a long history of fabricating information and this has been proven many times. This is exactly what I said: "Paul never made the claim of 11 national championships in Vietnam." There is a major difference between 11 time national champion of Vietnam versus 11 time national champion (with only 9 in South Vietnam). I was planning to do a book about his life some years ago and I interviewed a number of people about this. Author Leslie Horvitz (co-author of Teach Yourself Chess in 24 hours with Paul and I) continued with this project but we could not find an appropriate publisher. I even published dozens of pages written by Leslie Horvitz about Paul on my blog. We did not take Paul's words for it. We had to interview a number of people. Paul won 4 national under 21 championships of South Vietnam (not Vietnam). It was 2 separate countries. He won 5 national overall championships of South Vietnam. He won a national scholastic amateur team championship with the Collins Kids which he played for from 1980-1984. Some of his teammates were Patrick Wolff, Stuart Rachels, Alex Sherzer, Jon Litvinchuk, etc. The last was the US Open Blitz Championship in 2001 in Framingham ahead of Nakamura. He never once said that he won 11 national championship of Vietnam. And it is not his recollection. I interviewed his father and other people who knew him including the associate director of the National Sport Center of South Vietnam. He learned chess at the age of 5 from his father. His father bought a plastic chess set from PX. He taught Paul from reading the instructions on the back of the card board box. Ken Clayton saw his amazing talent and he offered to teach Paul about a year later when Paul was 6. Paul did not speak English and Ken does not speak Vietnamese. They could not communicate. He learned by watching Ken move the pieces. Ken never said anything contradicting to what Paul, his father, the associate director and what other people said. To Ken, he considered it the closest thing to a national championship because there was no separate chess federation in South Vietnam. He's technically correct. It was governed by the National Sports Organization which was located at the National Sports Center. This is a very common practice in many countries. The sports they governed included tennis, basketball, ping pong, judo, karate, swimming, volleyball, track and field, badmington, etc. All the national championships were held at this location. The associate director, Paul's father and others considered it the official championships. You have absolute no knowledge of this. I do. So please don't around incorrectly post information on other people's file. You have zero credibility in my book and you are a disgrace as a board member of the USCF. (Susan Polgar) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 03:08, July 18, 2007 (UTC)
To the admin: Is there any way of preventing people from posting false information for the purpose of harming others? I don't want to have to go back and forth with someone like Mr. Sloan who has a long history of fabrication. If there are items here that do not have enough supporting sources then please feel free to delete them. However, I don't want someone like this to keep posting false information to purposely harm other people's reputation. Thank you! (Susan Polgar) If you need to verify my identity, please feel free to contact me. My email address is SusanPolgar@aol.com and my website is SusanPolgar.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SusanPolgar (talk • contribs) 03:40, July 18, 2007 (UTC)

Susan Polgar is the wife of Paul Truong. They seem to be unaware that there is a Wikipedia Rule that a person is not allowed to modify their own biography. It seems obvious that almost this entire Wikipedia biography was written by Susan and Paul. There is no record of Paul Truong ever having won even one national championship of any country, either Vietnam, South Vietnam or USA, much less 9 or 11. I have been in contact with the Vietnam Chess Association and the Asian Chess Association about this. These organizations are familiar with Paul Truong but have no record of him ever winning any championship. The top Vietnamese players are all sent to Moscow for special training and Paul was never even one of the top players, much less their champion. It is not merely the claim that Paul Truong has won 11 national championships that is false. All of his chess claims are false. He also claims to have won 120 chess tournaments. There is no record of him having won even one chess tournament, other than very weak tournaments at the Polgar Chess Center or online. The USCF MSA goes back to 1991. I have old rating lists and there is no record of him having played between 1986 and 1991. I defeated him in a tournament in 1980 in New York and finished second, so he did not win that one. He certainly was never the number one junior player in Asia, especially since Anand was coming up at that time. Sam Sloan 04:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It is not only that there is no verification that Paul Truong ever won a national chess championship in Vietnam. There is also no verification that he ever won a national chess championship in the United States.

I happen to have right next to my left elbow a copy of every issue of Chess Life magazine going back to 1976, for a book I am working on, and nowhere in any of these issues of Chess Life is there any mention of Paul Truong ever winning a national chess championship anywhere. The only mention of Paul Truong is the one I have posted on my website of an interview of him authored by Randy Hough that everyone keeps citing.

Certainly, if Paul Truong ever won a national chess championship in the United States, it would have been mentioned in Chess Life and since it is not mentioned there his statement must not be true.

Now, if he would tell us when and where these national chess championships he supposedly won took place, we could look it up and try to determine that perhaps mention of it was omitted from Chess Life, but so far he has never told us when and where these national chess championships were.

Regarding his claims that he won National Chess Championships of Vietnam I have been in email contact with the Vietnam Chess Federation and they deny that Paul Truong ever won a national chess championship, although they know him as a chess player who used to live in Saigon. There are press releases from the Vietnam Chess Federation that is now active in FIDE providing the name of the winner of the First National Championship of Vietnam and that name is not Paul Truong (but is somebody else named Truong). The fact is that none of his information is verifiable and this is a matter of concern. We have NO INFORMATION about his employment background or his job history. There are indications that he has used other names such as Paul Derazza. Sam Sloan 16:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sam, up above Susan says the two American championships were a "national amateur scholastic team championship" won by the Collins Kids when Truong was a member of the team, between 1980 and 1984. The second was the 2001 US Open Blitz Championship, a side-event of the U.S Open held at Framingham. 24.218.180.68 17:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

What "Susan Polgar" obviously must be referring to is the US Amateur Team Championship now held in Parsippany NJ and run by Steven Doyle. This is a fun event for low rated players with no cash prizes. Doyle gives prizes for best costume, best team name, best act, best class D and all kinds of other things. It seems like almost everybody wins something. The Collins Kids usually send a half dozen or so teams to compete. It sounds like Truong is claiming that he was on a team that won a "Best Scholastic Team" prize. However, that is not a national championship, just as members of the team that won the prize for "Best Team Name" have not won a national championship, nor does my award for "Shining Light on the USCF" I received at that event give me a national title. Sam Sloan 23:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Since "Susan" didn't give details on which tournament it was, Sam is speculating, of course. But I will speculate, too, that Sam is correct. I don't know of any other events that have "Amateur Team" in the title. None of the real scholastic national championships do, at least not now, and I doubt they did back in 1980-1984. When you think about it, "scholastic" and "amateur" would be very odd. As opposed to what? A "professional scholastic team championship"? 24.218.180.68 10:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I have found it. It is in the June 1983 Chess Life, page 24. Paul Truong played Second Board on the Collins Kids J Team. There is a picture of a smiling Paul Truong in the middle of a bunch of other kids. The article states:

"Scholastic Division: This year the two scholastic team prizes were won by the Collins Kids Varsity Team (2183) and the Collins Kids J Team (2076). Both finished 4-2. On the varsity team were John Litvinchuk, Stuart Rachels, Andrew Lerner and Marco Robert. On the J Team were Chris Chambris, Hoainhan Truong, Jordan Feig and Tracy Callis."

[img]http://www.samsloan.com/truong-collins.jpg[/img]

I have checked all the other years and this is the only year that Paul Truong played on the Collins Kids team. Sam Sloan 16:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Sloan is known to file frolicsome lawsuits. This one is no different. "snits is correct that I never found any evidence that there had been any Fake Sam Sloan posts from a Texas Tech IP Address. In his lawsuit, Sam said that there had been posts from a Texas Tech computer, a little bit different than an IP address. When I asked Sam about this, he seemed to think that it was possible that his version was true. I wouldn't have put that in a lawsuit, but it is Sam Sloan's lawsuit." According to the USCF forums, none of the defendants has been served. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.192.177.89 (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It is a fact that Truong has been sued over this issue, and The New York Times has had several articles and blog posts covering the subject. I have no opinion as to the merits, but it is not our place on Wikipedia to forecast how the lawsuit will turn out. If reliable sources have said something, we can cover it. I don't know who you are, but given that you personally know the parties, I suspect you aren't able to write about the subject neutrally. Marc Shepherd 18:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Addendum: Noted on Administrators Noticeboard/Inquiries here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marc Shepherd (talk • contribs) 19:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IP 75.111.194.9 is Paul Truong

Truong edited the article page on October 3, 2007 and edited this talk page on September 11, 2007 but was reverted. He has been proven to be Paul Truong. Take a look at http://www.mottershead.info/uscfdocs/fake-sam-sloan.txt These are all proven to have been posts by the "Fake Sam Sloan". Take a look at all posts during the period September 15-19, 2007. All are from IP 75.111.194.9 . Probably several other edits here are by Truong as well. Mig Greengard in his "Daily Dirt" blog at http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2007/10/slime_spillover.htm proved yesterday that Truong has been posting to his blog under ten different fake names including "Voice of Reason". Watch out for fake postings by "Rob Mitchell" as well. Sam Sloan 22:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

While there is some evidence to support this claim, it is a gross exaggeration to say that it has been "proven." This is one of the points at issue in Sloan's latest lawsuit. If Sloan does _not_ succeed in convincing a jury of his claims, the above could be libelous, and we should take care that it does not bleed over into informational articles. Eddore 22:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)