End of an era

[Roger Lancaster]

Having said that, and maybe I'm being old-fashioned here, I don't think "disreputable shyster" is an appropriate term to use

I am perfectly prepared to use more old-fashoined terms myself, and not necessarily those of my own choosing, but they do need to convey the sense of a whole adult lifetime of dubious behaviour of a certain type, so by all means if people wish to suggest alternative nomenclature then go ahead. But it would have to be of a type that conveyed the reality and the record rather than seeking to obscure it.

Just in general, it does need to be said that English chess really needs to rid itself of the sentiment that people are being unfair to Ray.

Justin. I applaud your common sense, and David's, in withdrawing. As to your last sentence, while I follow (and largely share) your thinking, I also feel there's a need to keep some sense of perspective. There are serious fraudsters in the world, eg. internet scammers, depriving innocents of hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think I'm being fair in saying that even Ray's most determined critics wouldn't suggest that any wrongdoing (and I'm not prejudging here whether any wrongdoing has occurred) is of a remotely similar scale.

[JustinHorton]

I stand by my view that there was nothing unusual or sinister about the arrangements for the meeting.

Well I think the point David is that while other people may make similar arrangements, other people aren't Ray Keene, don't have the record he does, and in this specific context don't have a record for using the Houses of Parliament to promote themselves under the aeguis of manifestly astroturf organisations.

"What's Ray up to?" is always an appropriate question, and patently so here.

(I also think Angus may have been referring to earlier meetings that you said you had attended.)

There are serious fraudsters in the world, eg. internet scammers, depriving innocents of hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think I'm being fair in saying that even Ray's most determined critics wouldn't suggest that any wrongdoing (and I'm not prejudging here whether any wrongdoing has occurred) is of a remotely similar scale.

Up to a point, Roger, though in fact we wouldn't be "prejudging" whether "any wrongdoing has occurred", there's been plenty. But still, what's the point here? Yes, there are more serious fraudsters, but posting about Ray doesn't prevent anybody in any way from posting about them too, it just doesn't make sense as an argument. And we are posting on the English Chess Forum, and other fraudsters haven't really been active in English chess for all my life, have they? So it is hard to see relevance here.

Once again, this is really about English chess coming to terms not just with Ray, but with what Ray's long career may say about the environment in which it has taken place.

[David Sedgwick]

I think I'm being fair in saying that even Ray's most determined critics wouldn't suggest that any wrongdoing (and I'm not prejudging here whether any wrongdoing has occurred) is of a remotely similar scale.

That isn't actually the case, Roger. The magnitude of the alleged fraud in the Braingames case was several hundred thousand pounds.

Like you, I stress "alleged".

[David Sedgwick]

(I also think Angus may have been referring to earlier meetings that you said you had attended.)

In that case, there has been a misunderstanding. To the best of my recollection, I have never attended any meeting at the House of Commons with which Ray Keene was involved.

I did attend an event organised by him at the House of Lords. I cannot recall exactly when, but I do not think that it was either of the events to which you alluded upthread.

[Mick Norris]

Can the moderators take a look at this?

If they'd like to look at me being called "Commissar", Roger, which is a disgusting insult.

Okay. I shall withdraw the word "Commissar" and I apologise for it.

I am really unsure here what to think, whether the positive of the apology or the negative of this being the latest in a growing number of times an apology has been needed

[Roger Lancaster]

I think I'm being fair in saying that even Ray's most determined critics wouldn't suggest that any wrongdoing (and I'm not prejudging here whether any wrongdoing has occurred) is of a remotely similar scale.

That isn't actually the case, Roger. The magnitude of the alleged fraud in the Braingames case was several hundred thousand pounds.

Like you, I stress "alleged".

Yes, I'd overlooked that. I'm not fully conversant with the full Braingames background beyond noting that it allegedly ended as a classic "pump and dump" scheme involving, at minimum, the "several hundred thousand pounds" to which David refers. But I can't trace that financial regulators or other competent authorities, eg. poIice, have taken the matter any further forward, in which case I assume nothing can be regarded as proven.

[JustinHorton]

For what it's worth it's a subject I choose to avoid on here, simply because of the combination of the severity of the allegations and the obscurity of the resolution. (I have a notion as to how it was resolved, but only a notion, and I won't be sharing it.)

[Roger Lancaster]

I think I'm being fair in saying that even Ray's most determined critics wouldn't suggest that any wrongdoing (and I'm not prejudging here whether any wrongdoing has occurred) is of a remotely similar scale.

That isn't actually the case, Roger. The magnitude of the alleged fraud in the Braingames case was several hundred thousand pounds.

Like you, I stress "alleged".

Yes, I'd overlooked that. I'm not fully conversant with the full Braingames background beyond noting that it allegedly ended as a classic "pump and dump" scheme involving, at minimum, the "several hundred thousand pounds" to which David refers. But I can't trace that financial regulators or other competent authorities, eg. poIice, have taken the matter any further forward, in which case I assume nothing can be regarded as proven.

This is the Wikipedia account: "In 2000, Keene's former brother-in-law David Levy accused him of deceiving the directors of their company Mind Sports Olympiad Ltd (MSO) by setting up a rival company, Brain Games Network plc (BGN), without their knowledge and using £50,000 of MSO Ltd money to do so. Levy further alleged that Keene changed his story several times as to the purpose of the payment and the reasons why the new company had been set up. He complained that shares in the new company were held by Keene and an associate (Don Morris) but not by the company for which they had been supposed to be working, nor any of its directors other than themselves. Levy wrote:

"As one would expect, our original investors were equally astounded at the news and extremely angry at Keene. They had by now invested £1.5 million (approximately $2.25 million at that time) partly or largely on the basis of their faith in Keene and myself. Now they had learned that one of their two key consultants, the one with money-raising skills, had been working to set up a rival company.

"Nothing, however, was proven against Keene (who had swiftly paid an identical sum, i.e. £50,000 to MSO, making the subsequent explanation that this constituted a personal loan from himself) and his new company went on to organise the world championship match later that same year. (It was at this time that Private Eye started referring to him as "The Penguin", a nickname he had first acquired in 1966.)

"Levy further criticised Keene for selling three of his own companies to BGN for £220,000 despite their being "virtually worthless". The three companies had between them "a total capital and reserves of only £2,300". At much the same time, according to Levy, BGN purchased a web site and two domain names from Chess and Bridge Limited. However, they made the purchase in two stages. The first of these stages was its sale to Giloberg Finance Limited, owned by Keene's associate Alan Lubin: the second was the immediate sale of the same items, by Giloberg, to BGN. The first sale was for approximately £60,000 (in fact $100,000) and the second was for £290,000, hence making Giloberg "an instant profit of approximately £230,000" and raising the question of why BGN should have paid a sum much greater than the original vendors considered the items were worth.

"BGN collapsed in controversial circumstances. Shareholders were unhappy that sums amounting to at least £675,000 had been paid to directors in "fees and payments" despite the company swiftly becoming insolvent. Investors were also unhappy that Keene and Lubin had acquired 88% of the company "for a song" even though the remaining 12% had been sold for around £3 million.

"During the course of the 2000 Braingames World Championship Keene was accused of heavy-handed behaviour in having journalist John Henderson removed from the press room with the assistance of bouncers."

[Kevin Thurlow]

"and other fraudsters haven't really been active in English chess for all my life, have they?"

Yes

[Roger de Coverly]

This is the Wikipedia account

Financing the 2000 match in London was innovative. A Company was set up to finance the match and pay the substantial prize money. This attracted investors. But were they really donors, as there would be little or no value left in the Company after paying for the match? As opposed to making a straight donation, they did at least get some tax losses for their generosity.

[JustinHorton]

There's a certain amount of "before" and "after" about the BGN affair - Ray's never been the same since, certainly if we're thinking of his ambitions to be a major figure in the chess world, and he kind of laid low for a few years afterwards. (He wasn't in Private Eye much if at all, for instance.) I think he was re-orienting himself round Tony Buzan and building up his network of cronies, but at any rate when he did reappear he was very much a reduced figure, and what strikes the observer about his schemes and wheezes since is their absurdity as much as their seriousness (even the plagiarism and the fake charity are comical, ludicrous affairs).

Still, for a while I thought we wouldn't be hearing from him again, and I thought that if we did, people would be sufficiently sick of him to tell him to sling his hook. So it wasn't really until he turned up in Sheffield in 2011 - and it didn't happen - that I started to think along the lines that interesting though Ray was in his own right, one of the interesting things about him was what his career told us about the chess community. And I've been thinking about that ever since.

[JustinHorton]

"and other fraudsters haven't really been active in English chess for all my life, have they?"

Yes

By all means put some names to them

[Simon Rogers]

"and other fraudsters haven't really been active in English chess for all my life, have they?"

Yes

By all means put some names to them

Here is one to tickle your taste buds:
Topic first posted on the forum in General Chat on Thursday 30th September 2010.
'Well known Liverpool chess player jailed"
Link to an article:
http://tinyurl.com/2uwstw8

[Matt Mackenzie]

Anyway......has the MP who invited RDK to do this Commons meeting been identified yet?

[Ian Thompson]

other fraudsters haven't really been active in English chess for all my life, have they?

There was the BCF Finance Director, in, I think, the mid- to late-1970s, who was found to have been temporarily diverting BCF funds to his own account, to pocket the interest for a few weeks, before passing the funds on to the BCF. If I recall correctly, he'd been doing this for several years before he was found out and the total amount involved was a few thousand pounds.

More recently there's also Gary Quillan, although his activities were not related to his being a chess player.