chess.net -- Anti-Truongists

    After establishing eeking and the word "eek" itself at chess.net, we turned our focus onto another thing.  Bringing down the corrupt Truong and all his dupes.  We were sick of the abuse and the backroom dealing that went on to appease Truong.  We wanted him and all his dupes gone and to allow chess.net to somehow become unblemished by the corruption that came with Truong.  The principal members of the Anti-Truong movement were:

    Most of us also happened to be known as the "eekers".  This is due to many of us liking to play wild 5 and our propensity for owning Truong's dupes at variants that Truong doesn't actually know how to play.  2500 in crazyhouse, riiiight.  2500 wild, riiiiight.  3000 abusing, yes, definitely.  Unfortunately, abuse is not a rated category, and if it was, Truong would be #1 through #20 on the best list for that.

Here's a email from Kobe_Bryant that references the "Truong War" between the Anti-Truongists and the Truongists:

From: "Justin Brown" <hideandq@hotmail.com>
To: silverchair_email@australia.edu 
Subject: Kobe_Bryant's letter to Aardvark 
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 20:24:41 GMT 

Aardvark, 

I am resigning as a guide for a variety of reasons: 

1. The prevalence of the “Truong war” which has followed me on to other 
servers. I have neither the time nor the disposition to deal w/ it. And I 
believe that both sides have lied to me. While Zmaster, ahab, and 
silverchair are my friends, they have provided explanations that fit the 
facts they chose to provide. It got tiresome when I’m bothered on other 
servers due to the problems inherent to chess.net. Also, I am convinced that 
a lot of the misconceptions regarding the issue are the end effect of a 
serious problem that is my point 2. Players like firestarter and digital 
(which I am convinced have lied to me regardless due to irrefutable evidence 
I’ve sought out) are “anonymous masters” whose mere presence invites rumor 
and speculation. If those players were able to have their title applied, 
then there would be no question as to identity. However, I know a lot of 
other anonymous masters who have legitimate reasons not to get their title 
applied. I’m no longer interested in hearing that every player over 2200 is 
truong’s secret account, or you are somehow involved. I’m also sick of the 
anti-c/net sites etc. As Truong’s friend, I tried to help in his attempt to 
end the madness. At least he has tried to end the conflict. You fuel it w/ 
indifference. As the head admin, you can do something besides treating the 
subject as taboo and sweeping it under the carpet. 
2. Titled players with the exceptions of the owners are leaving and are 
being scared away. I can not continue to represent a chess server that 
actively ran off GM Shirov. The situation has not improved, b/c as I have 
already mentioned, good players fear their identity becoming public 
knowledge on chess.net. IM Appel said that he had his title taken off on 
chess.net b/c of the trash talking. Yet the titled players who are 
problematic are indulged!? NM Goldsby and IM Valvo have the worst attitude 
and are often the ones who happen to be on the server. NM Goldsby is a 
menace for a variety of reasons, as is Valvo for different reasons. With a 
few exceptions, things have gone awry. 
3. Security and privacy are not respected. I am convinced that my name on 
ICC was obtained on chess.net through tell monitoring. This information, 
which if ascertained by admins, should have stayed within the admin 
community. Yet your friend photogenic happened to know my ICC name. I would 
not have known if zmaster had not informed me. He had taken my ICC name on 
chess.net and photogenic referred to him as me. I was given the very 
questionable explanation that photogenic confused me for him. English is my 
first language, and not his. So I find it hard to believe that we speak in 
similar manners. I consider this a serious violation of my privacy, and 
given the facts provided, I would be hard pressed to truly come up w/ a 
different explanation and outlook. 
4. My friends have been banned. While I agree that zmaster and ahab deserved 
to be banned, banning ody was in poor taste. Chess.net would not be so 
sensitive to observations that reflect poorly on the server if there weren’t 
so many problems. I think the treatment of him and other legitimate 
complaints or observations show a Gestapo mentality. I have no wish to 
continue under such a regime. I doubt you would care so much he said that 
you copied off other servers ideas (valid observation) if you didn’t. And 
referring to other servers wouldn’t be such a crime if chess.net was not so 
problematic. I know that he harassed other players, but it was not serious. 
And that would not have been such a sensitive issue if others didn’t already 
make a mockery of players w/ high ratings (point 1). Nicole_bnntt is another 
friend of mine maligned by chess.net. 
5. The treatment of guides is clearly different than the treatment of other 
players. I know that you and other admins are acting quite rudely to other 
players on the server. These complaints have come from a variety of sources 
on more than one admin. Since you are equally, if not more so guilty, you 
can not claim that you didn’t know. Shouting at other members, threatening 
them, and being sarcastic and condescending is not in the job description of 
head admin. As a genius, my IQ is in the genius range, I take offense when 
others who are not as bright act holier than thou. I don’t see you 
accomplishing much in the chess world, or being gifted by any definition of 
the term. A recent event w/ admin zilched sealed my decision to leave as a 
guide. I played him twice as a guest late at night. I was kind of tired and 
didn’t want to play rated games, but wasn’t going to sleep so I left as 
Kobe_Bryant and came on as a guest. I declined his third challenge, and he 
accused me of winning and running, and was trash talking despite his claims 
to the contrary. It was a truly disgusting display on his part. 
6. The aforementioned problems are for the most part inherent to chess.net 
and it’s current policies. I’ve been to all the other servers, and things 
are clearly better there. The new USCL server (although I’ve been to FICS, 
WCN, ICC as well) has opened my eyes to how bad things really are on 
chess.net. The thugs on chess.net are kept in check there, and they have 
only been functioning for less than a few weeks, and they’ve been able to 
run a first class server. I’d rather be just a regular member on their 
server than a guide on chess.net. With all the corruption and self serving 
admins, I’m just watching Rome burn down while the emperor gets piss drunk 
on power. That does not appeal to me. 

I truly feel sorry for Roman Dzindzichashvili and Yasser Seirawan. However, 
even they have most likely lost faith in their server, as both play on ICC. 
Those two GM’s had very little to do w/ the downfall of chess.net. I believe 
I have a number of legitimate grievances and reasons to not continue as a 
guide, and perhaps even a member as I go off to college on Wednesday. While 
I have made some good friends, and had some good experiences on chess.net, I 
think the situation mandates that I leave. I suggest you take these 
criticisms seriously, b/c otherwise you are doing yourself a disservice. 

Justin Brown 

PS. I do intend to show up a few more times to message my friends about my 
departure. I have kept these complaints for the most part private. If I am 
not afforded the opportunity to speak to my friends on the server, I would 
not be so quiet. I would like to leave chess.net with the ability to say 
nice things about it.