Editorial

A few of the greatest tragedies that I have ever witnessed have emerged out of the chess world, nationally and locally. It is with great displeasure that I feel compelled to share with you the history about the latter.

In the beginning

I became involved with chess as a sophomore in High School in 1989. Scholastic chess was not very popular back then, not that I’m complaining. Back then scholastic chess for Kansas City was organized only on the Kansas side of things by a gentleman by the name of Ralph Bowman and guy named Bob Larson, a former master. Ralph Bowman went on to become a major director and organizer at the national level and deservedly so. If it wasn’t for him running tournaments, it’s unlikely I would have continued with chess. After High School, I mostly was in an out of chess for the next 8 years or so. When I re-emerged from my slumber, the scholastic chess landscape had changed.

When I became involved with teaching chess in 2001, the permanent fixtures that were previously organizing scholastic chess were gone. They were both replaced with someone named CJ Armenta. I was introduced to this man and he seemed to be a pretty decent guy. In the late 90’s, there was another group that was organizing chess on the Missouri side of Kansas City. Back then it was called the Heart of America Chess Association, which was headed up by Ken Fee and Bob Holliman (a former master; i.e. www.chessmasterbob.com). This group was fairly active over the years and there was much cooperation between this group and CJ Armenta. The HOA chess association even partially trained CJ to fulfill his role with his organization called the Kansas Scholastic Chess Association (KSCA).

Fast forward to the future

By the year 2000, scholastic chess was growing exponentially on a national level and indeed locally, with the annual State of Kansas tournament hosting 500+ entries. Back in the late 80’s the state tournament would scratch and claw to get 100 entries. However, I am questioning the level of input the local association had with the growth of chess at that time. Actually, it was mere demographics. In a future editorial I will explain the national tragedy with chess.

Well, in about 2003, the Heart of America Chess Association was producing very high-quality, professionally run tournaments with the aide of Mr. Holliman who had been running adult events for the past 20 years. His experience was invaluable. The tournaments were so well produced that the number of entries to their tournaments were growing and growing rapidly, due to good word-of-mouth marketing. In fact, for a short while their tournaments had more entries at tournaments than the KSCA. The KSCA was noting that their attendance was dropping at a continual pace.

For the most part, it wasn’t really an issue, since the base population of the KSCA was to service the rural aspect of Kansas (western) and small portions of Johnson County. The HOA was mainly concentrating on Kansas City and mostly promoting on the Missouri side of Kansas City. It appeared players and students were migrating from more rural locations to the HOA tournaments. There were players as far away as Wichita, Springfield, Jefferson City and parts of Iowa and Nebraska attending the HOA tournaments.

“the times, they are ‘a changin’”

It was the belief by me and any normal bystander that the true purpose of these organizations was to spread and promote chess among the scholastic community. I had known Bob Holliman for about 12 years, and I had gotten to know Ken Fee pretty well. They were both very upstanding figures in the chess community. I initially attached myself to both organizations.

Ever since Ralph Bowman came on the scene, the face of scholastic chess in Kansas and for that matter Kansas City was controlled by him. When Bowman, semi-retired in the late 90’s, he turned over the reigns to his #1 boy, CJ Armenta. CJ did not like the fact that the HOA people were out-pacing the growth of his organization. This angered CJ and over the next 6 months became more contentious with the HOA folks. At the end of the 6 months, CJ expressed absolute contempt and was even verbally abusive with the HOA. The KSCA’s excuse at the time was that the HOA wasn’t reporting results from tournaments fast enough and something with the rating database. This, in my mind, is a very poor excuse to throw away the previously established relation. Sounds contrived to me. Later on, the KSCA accused the HOA of not following their rules. What rules? The two organizations were never joined at the hip. Each organization operated independently. Every month the KSCA and CJ Armenta started to sound like a dictatorship. We feel that it was because they had been so used to controlling every aspect of scholastic chess, they could not deal with competition.

Storyline is heating up

As I was promoting my efforts with chess instruction and promotion, I became involved with two groups; the Kansas Chess Association (KCA; the adult body), and the Kansas City Regional Chess Council (KCRCC). I joined them for two separate reasons. I joined the KCRCC, number one, because I was asked, and number two, I thought it would be a great vehicle to make my name. However, these two groups had a life of their own. I will attempt to explain their relationship.

The KCRCC was organized by a select group of people. They had various chess stalwarts like Ralph Bowman, Paul DeBarthe, CJ Armenta, and a guy named Zeb Fortman II. This group also included some members at-large who had specific skills they donated to the Council and even some influential people in the city. Their primary goal was to organize a large national scholastic chess tournament called SuperNationals. It was a fantastic idea and they did a wonderful job with the event, from what I hear. I was not present for that tournament, as I appeared later on the scene.

After the tournament was over, it seemed the organization had lost its identity. On their website, their mission statement indicated “for the purpose of the promotion of scholastic Chess in Missouri and Kansas” and “The continuing purpose of the Council is for the promotion of Chess in Missouri and Kansas schools”. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but when the smoke cleared, all the group was able to do was secure funding for a supposed to be district-wide program in the Kansas City Missouri Public Schools for Mr. Fortman, the Executive Director. As I joined the group, it was my understanding that I, as Assistant to the Executive Director, was going to benefit by the group’s efforts as well, since I was active in teaching and at the time I had a few public schools I was working with. Boy was I misled. The KCRCC never had any intentions of helping me. Their sole purpose was to help Zeb in the post-tournament era. I figure it had something to do with my unofficial relationship with the HOA group. Over the next year and half that I sat as a director between late 2001 and early 2003, I never saw the least bit of effort to expand their ideals. The only thing that was completed was Zeb’s annual application for funds for the KC, MO district program. A short time later I resigned my position because I thought it was futile. A short while after that, I learned that while I was still a director with the KCRCC, they had replaced my seat with Zeb’s wife/girlfriend. I have the documentation to prove this. I attended all the meetings and I don’t recall voting myself out of office.

New challenge awaits

About midway through my tenure with the KCRCC, I decided to be somewhat more of an activist and I ran for President of the Kansas Chess Association (KCA). The KCA is responsible for all things concerning chess for the adult population. Apparently, I hadn’t earned the respect of those voting and I tied with another gentleman for that position. We co-chaired for President that year. During that year, I had been doing research on other adult associations. I had long known that the adult association had been languishing with fairly terrible membership. It was my intention to correct this. As I set towards the path I laid, I was confronted and chastised by the other officers for trying to steer the ship into the 21st century. I could not believe this demonstration of apathy. From then on, every single action that I wanted to conduct had to go through a “vote” by the other officers. I would routinely lose 3 votes to 1. I didn’t find out until later that all the other officers, save one, were secret agents for CJ Armenta. The other officer succumbed to peer-pressure stimulated by lies created by the political machine CJ created, and he turned to the dark side.

CJ, still reeling from his de-throning of chess lord ultimate, decided to up the ante. Sometime in about 2003, CJ launched a smear campaign against the HOA people. This included sending the coaches and parents in the KSCA organization emails indicating to them that if their students played in chess tournaments that were outside the organizations “sanctioned” tournaments that those students would not be eligible to compete or win titles in the state championship. At the time, the state championship was under the KSCA’s control. We know this because CJ accidentally sent one of these emails to one of the members of the HOA, perhaps on purpose. How can he do this? How can he legally do this? Why would he do this? Isn’t this contrary to the purpose of his organization about the promotion of chess?

Sherlock Holmes, I presume

Upon further research, I discovered that he derived his authority for this action under the auspices of the adult association (KCA), which is backed up by the USCF, or the national association. However, if you dig a little deeper, the rumor on the streets was that the KCA gave the KSCA permission to run the state scholastic championship. What is very difficult for me to comprehend is how this happened. It was about 1995 when the KSCA officially formed, although they will claim they formed sometime back in the early 1900’s. The KCA had been formed for maybe 40 years or so. While I was co-President of the KCA, I found not a shred of documentation that indicated that it was even voted upon that the KCA released its right to run the scholastic state championship to the KSCA. There was no archival of anything except the year before. Perhaps that was by design when I took office. Ralph Bowman claims that the KCA granted the KSCA this permission sometime in the late 90’s. The interesting thing here is that Ralph Bowman and his friends were officers of both the KCA and the KSCA during this time. How convenient it was for the members of both groups to grant themselves provisions of this nature. Where was the line between the two organizations? They seemed as one. How in the world can this type of organization not have any paperwork documenting their efforts over all these years? All previous years information had been destroyed or perhaps they were never documented on purpose. I pushed for the KCA to regain control of the state championship seeing as how CJ was in a chess demotion mood. I was conveniently blocked by vote by the other officers of the KCA.

During my tenure, I was able to unearth real information about what was going on. Over all these years, Ralph and CJ were running these events with good intentions. However, when they realized that chess was growing they became more involved because it was also providing them with an excellent source of supplemental income. Kudos to them!! They were doing a lot of work and spending a lot of time, and they deservedly had every right to make a profit. However, the HOA group was becoming more successful than they, and the HOA was taking a chunk of money out of their pocket. This apparently didn’t sit well with them. Then CJ, with the aide of Ralph, reinvigorated their smear campaign and was accusing the HOA of trying to make a profit on chess and kids. The KSCA was saying that their organization was as pure as the driven snow and that they were a non-profit. They were modestly successful in this campaign due to the propaganda machine they had created in their own association and the general disinformation their members had about the chess community, until I did some more digging.

Always look for the money trail

The reason that the KSCA was somewhat more vengeful in this round, was that CJ and the boys were making anywhere between $6,000 - $9,000 in revenue from the state championship alone. For at least two years, the event was held at the school that CJ Armenta worked at. I don’t know if the event was held there more than that, because that organization never archives anything from the previous years. It was also noted and an accepted practice across state scholastic associations to increase the entry fee to $15-$20 for the state tournament because of so much more work needing to be completed. These tournaments are almost always used as fund-raisers for the host school and their chess club. However, I found out that CJ’s school never received one penny from the state event in ‘04. The adult association has auspices over the scholastic association. It was then that I demanded to see from CJ, then KSCA President, the proceeds and revenues from those tournaments. I felt the need to do this because as co-President of the adult association I am responsible for the fiscal integrity of the group and the groups it represents. And I definitely was uncomfortable with the integrity of the KSCA. The KSCA was using control of the scholastic state championship as leverage against the parents and schools to follow their “rules” and maintain membership. Coercion is a dirty game.

For six months CJ and the KSCA stalled and failed to present information on the KSCA’s books. After much persistence, CJ and his boys presented last years books only. Most of the information was very spotty, with major holes in expenditures. Through my supreme math skills, I was also able to determine that they probably under-reported income from the numerous tournaments during the year. They even reported only a $3,000 profit from the state championship which I thought was impossibly low. It appeared the “books were cooked.” I then made a visit to the school district where the state championships were run in Kansas City, and I discovered that they never even rented out the facilities. So, my next question was “Where did the money go?” At the meeting where CJ presented his version of the books, he indicated that all the money from the association was deposited into his own personal checking account. Wow! Not even a separate savings or checking account. His own personal account! He later recanted this testimony, for obvious reasons. This fact confirmed my suspicions about the integrity of their organization. To this day, we still don’t know how much money the KSCA collected over the years or where the money has actually been deposited. The KSCA now claims that they are a separate entity from the adult association. Reeeeaaallllllyyy? How convenient.

It was then that I realized the connection between the KSCA and the KCRCC. Upon this realization, I promptly resigned both positions that I held with both organizations. I am just a man in search of the truth.

The aftermath:

• After learning who discovered his little game, CJ has been focusing his attention on me. I had a very successful program in a public school. I have first hand knowledge from the school staff teacher who I coordinated with, that CJ allegedly told her numerous “facts” about me. A short while later I was not asked back to the program that I helped create. This could be potentially viewed as slanderous. Don’t you think? My lawyer thinks so. It is rumored that CJ continues to defame my name and company’s reputation with other public schools in his district.
• CJ Armenta has been voted out of office in his own scholastic association. However, he still has his agents that work for him there.
• The HOA, now known as the Kansas City Scholastic Chess Association, is growing at a fantastic rate, with no signs of slowing.
• The KSCA is still in operation. It is rumored they still send out malicious emails to protect their market. They think they are entitled to a monopoly. I think not. The KSCA is still advocating the un-promotion of chess. Please click here and check it out for yourself. At the top you will see their mission statement “The purpose of this organization shall be for the promotion of scholastic Chess in the state of Kansas.” This seems contradictory to: “Section 4. To retain membership in this organization, a member school must do the following: a) not enter a team into any event not sanctioned by the Board of Directors, b) strongly urge their students to not participate in events not sanctioned by this organization,” Sounds like a dictatorship to me and not in the best interest of the chess community or promotion. If you have further questions about these “rules” you should contact their President Tom Claman at tclaman@footlocker.com or 785.823.2957. I’m sure he would be more than happy to justify their position and their commitment to chess promotion.
• The Kansas City Regional Chess Council became defunct at the end of their fiscal year in 2004. Upon filing a final return with the IRS, they are required by law to pass the remaining funds in their bank account to another recognized not-for-profit. I wonder just where that money went.
• Members of the KSCA in Kansas hardly ever attend tournaments sponsored by the HOA group. Students from Missouri are rarely ever “accepted” at KSCA events.
• The KSCA is NOT, nor ever officially been recognized by the State of Kansas or any other entity as a not-for-profit much less a 501 (c) (3).
• The KSCA is NOT unofficially nor officially recognized by the Kansas State Board of Education. The State Board of Education has informed us that they have absolutely no interest in regulating scholastic chess. We have the documentation to prove this!
• Besides paying for scholastic memberships for kids last year in ‘05 (total was undisclosed, of course) I have never seen the KSCA (self-proclaimed not-for-profit) ever donate money or resources to schools or students, except for running their tournaments. Sounds like a for-profit entity to me.
• As far as I know, the KSCA has absolutely no right, as granted by the state board of education or the United States Chess Federation, to restrict any player/student from attending any tournament whatsoever.
• Virtually every school sponsor and parent and player in the KSCA membership doesn’t know a thing about any this information. It was kept hidden from them for many years.

The final word:

All Ken & Bob’s group and my company wanted to do was just run as many tournaments and teach as many students as possible to promote chess as much as we could with the scholastic market without barriers. If that’s a crime, then I need to be locked away for a very long time.

Tim Steiner