From Chesspedia, the Free Chess Encyclopedia
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.