Zhi Zhou's Complaint Against Salman Azhar to the Executive Director of the U.S. Chess Federation:

Hi,

My name is Zhi Zhou, father of 9 years old USCF member Anthony Zhou. I want to make a formal complaint against 2011 CalChess Grade Level Championship Event Organizer Salman Azhar, also vice president of CalChess.

At the start of the final round of the tournament, a chess parent alerted me that something was going on with my son. Looking at the direction of where he was sitting, I could see an angry adult yelling vary close to his face. Getting closer, I could hear him yelling “You are a good player but you don’t know the roles. You don’t know what you are doing.” This man quickly left the room when I and few other parents arrived at the table. At that time, my son started to cry and said he didn’t do anything wrong.

I immediately reported this incident to a helper/tournament director inside the playing room but he seemed like didn’t know what to do, only asked, “Where’s guy?” but didn’t go look for the him. I went outside of the playing hall and was able to track down the man. I told him that he shouldn’t have yelled at a kid, didn’t matter what happened to kids’ chess game. He said my son started first, by reporting to the tournament director that his son was writing down the moves after moving the pieces, or something like that, and caused his son to cry.

I told him that my son did the right thing by reported to the tournament director. It’s up the tournament director to make the ruling, and he shouldn’t yell at a child or any children there.   He said maybe I was right; it was the tournament director’s fault for making the wrong ruling. After saying that, he was getting even more upset and starting rushing to the play hall entrance looking for the original tournament director. At that time, I and few chess parents were told to stay back, and can’t hear any of their conversations.

We could see Salman finally came over from the other playing room but this angry parent was still able enter back to the playing room where all the children were playing their last game, not sure what happened in there since the doors were closed.  Many of the parents were getting very upset and demanded Salman to call 911 to kick him out but he said he was not going to do it and we have to do it ourselves. One parent did started to dial but I stopped him thinking we shouldn’t make it a big deal, and Salman and other tournament directors should be able talk to guy and have him apologize. What a mistake!!!!!!!!!!!

Now at least 15 minutes since leaving the playing room, I was still not able to talk to Salman or the any other tournament directors in charge. All I was thinking at the time was to let them know what had happened and hear an official word from the people in charge to condemn the guy and maybe give him a warning so he will think twice before confronting a youth child in the future, however Salman went back to the other room. Finally John Cu, the chief tournament director of the tournament, said he will talk to us in 5 minutes downstairs.

On our way downstairs, we started to have conversations with the man again since he was standing near the stair case. He did finally admitted that it was his fault and apologized to me multiple times and said he will apologize to my son when his game was over.  When we got down to the hotel lobby downstairs, he was getting annoyed since couple other parents were still not satisfy with his apologies.  He started to use abusive language yelling at one of them, “Who are you?” “Go F*** Off.” The parent only yelled back, “Hey, hey, hey,” and trying to get very close to the guy, seems like he didn’t know what else to say. To prevent them from getting physical contact, I stepped in between and told the guy that I was going to call the police.  At the same time, coupe hotel security guards arrived and told us to stop yelling in the lobby.  We told them that the guy was yelling at a kid upstairs in the chess room, and should call the police to report the guy.

Instead of calling 911, the hotel security asked for our names and phone numbers to be used as witness again the guy, and they will need to talk to Salman first. Few minutes later Salman finally came down. I told him what happened in the chess playing room. I was hoping that he will start looking for the guy and condemn him, instead Salman said it was because of Weibel. I just couldn’t believe what I  heard. He continued to say that it’s true because Weibel have done the same before and that’s why my son got yelled at this time. I told him that all he said was Weibel, Weibel, Weibel but not the guy yelling at my kid, seems like he was blaming everything on Weibel. Tell you the true, I had no idea why at that time, and I was confused, vary confused, but worse was yet to come. Few minutes later, Salman told me that I was out of the tournament and the hotel. I told him that he doesn’t have any authority to kick me out of the hotel but he said he does and keeps asking for my son’s name. I told him that I was not going to tell him, knowing that he might kick him out too.  I told him that he’s disgraced and should be ashamed of himself because I was the victim and I didn’t do anything wrong. He then went back to the hotel instead of listening to me.

Few minutes later, he came out again and asked how long I will need to leave the hotel property. I told him that I will wait outside until my son was done with his game. He said that was not an option. I then said I will wait in the parking lot across the street until my son was done. He continued to say that was not an option either, and asked other parents for my son’s name and quickly went back inside.  Few more minutes later, my son was running out, crying and asked repeatly what he did wrong.  All I could do was to tell him that he didn’t do anything wrong.  How a decent human being could do such horrible thing to a child? No one, except Salman Azhar. I couldn’t understand why until the next day.

It turns out that Salman was having a big argument with Weibel Chess director Dr. Kirshner before our incident. He was against me and my son as his payback to Dr. Kirshner.

Clearly Salman Azhar has very serious ethical problem.  He was abusing his power just to revenge for whatever difference with his rival and hurt innocent people including a child. To me he is mentally not fit to representing USCF and CalChess.  His hatred is damaging the reputation of USCF and CalChess. I hope the USCF and CalChess will fully and fairly investigate this incident and take necessary actions to prevent it from happening again.

Regards

Zhi Zhou