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Tom Dorsch (as per Sam Sloan Sunday, December 11, 2005 3:43 PM revised and edited by Andrew Zito)

Tom Dorsch (b. 1942 Nebraska) controversial chess master and chess politician, became a rated chess expert at an early age, eventually rising to
a master's level, is also became a professional poker player, playing the card rooms in Emeryville, California, where poker was legal (primarily played at the Key Club, and less often at the Oaks Club. His specialty was lowball.)

Attending briefly University of California (Berkeley) he majored psychology. playing in the 1961 US Open Chess Championship in San Francisco. Dorsch later played for the University of California chess team in the Bay Area Chess League. Berkeley won the Bay Area Chess League championship that year, in part because of victories by Dorsch against higher rated players. Dorsch played on the Berkeley team in the 1963 US Intercollegiate Chess Championship on the campus of Notre Dame University in Indiana. The Berkeley team tied with the University of Texas led by Henry Davis and Stephan Jones for the US Championship.

Tom Dorsch considered amiable, well liked and popular, ran for the USCF of position of Treasurer in 1996 and was elected, later becaming President of the California Chess Association, and Editor of CalChess Magazine.He married one of the top woman chess players in California, Carolyn Withgitt, who was both a lawyer and an accountant ..

In October, 1998, it was said that he had a changed personality and started attacking those who had  previously supported him, the slate he had supported and gotten elected in the 1999 election was completely wiped out and defeated by the 2001 election. Since then, Tom Dorsch has dropped out of chess, divorced his wife resigning his official chess positions  moving back to Nebraska.

Sam Sloan writing on Tom Dorsch

Tom Dorsch USCF rating listing