Table-top strategists pitched in a bitter, decades-old battle to control the Virgin Islands’ official chess organization have taken their dispute to the Superior Court.
Longtime leadership of the non-profit Virgin Islands Chess Federation alleged disgruntled chess players from the offshoot Virgin Islands Chess Association staged a would-be coup, holding an unsanctioned election that spuriously voted in new Federation leadership. They then took their elections documents to Bank of St. Croix and changed the names of who could access the account.
Federation President Margaret Murphy said she went to the bank and was shocked to find she was no longer allowed access.
“The lady says to me at the bank, ‘oh that account, the signatories were changed on that yesterday,’” Murphy said. “I said, ‘How did they do that?’ She said, ‘Well, they had minutes from the meeting.’”
The Association, represented by Gail Widmer and attorney Anne Kershaw, claimed the election and bank account changes were valid and long overdue. Murphy, they said, had run the territory’s Olympic chess organization as her own fiefdom, creating ad hoc rules to block out rivals while stacking club leadership with friends. They and like-minded chess players had asked for changes to Federation bylaws and for Murphy to hold a special election. Challenges to Murphy’s laws, they said, were met with retribution. They said Murphy was invited to participate in the March election but refused.
“Margaret Murphy acts as if her policies were written by God and handed down to her like the Ten Commandments,” Widmer said. “Leadership is supposed to be there for the will of the members who own the corporation or non-profit.”
Murphy and Widmer said the bank had frozen the account until a judge ruled on the matter. Bank of St. Croix’s parent company, Illinois-based United Fidelity Bank, did not immediately respond to several messages seeking comment.
Although neither side alleged any wrongdoing with the roughly $8,000 in the bank account, they’ve filed hundreds of pages of court documents explaining how they were the rightful Chess Federation leaders and administrators of the funds used for tournaments.
Both groups claiming to be properly elected leadership have written to The Source to set the record straight. They both also asked reporting on the dispute not legitimize the opposing view.
The disputed new Federation leadership rerouted their colorful Association website to usvichessfederation.org, rivaling Murphy’s black-and-white usvichessfederation.com. The new website featured a paragraph explaining the quarrel in part and a notice that regular dues would not be collected until the issue was resolved.
John Abramson Jr., the new president of the Virgin Islands Olympic Committee, said he was aware of the squabble and suspected he might be called to testify in court. He said he’d been given legal advice to not comment until then.
Like many sports under the Olympic Committee, the Chess Federation is made up of clubs that elect their own leaders. The leaders of those clubs vote for broader leadership. If Widmer and Kershaw wanted to take control of the Chess Federation, Murphy said, all they needed to do was form enough clubs to vote Murphy and other officers out.
That’s exactly what Widmer and Kershaw said they attempted to do in 2023, only to have their four new clubs stymied by Murphy’s arbitrary rules. They claim Murphy invented stipulations against playing chess in places that serve alcohol or were too noisy.
“We tried earnestly to abide by her rules,” Widmer said by email. “These clubs existed before she drafted her constitution/bylaws with the no-alcohol clause. She added that clause specifically as a means of rejecting the clubs, which she did. All club presidents affirmed that no alcohol would be consumed during the club sessions, but she refused to compromise, clearly not wanting her 25-year control put at risk by eight or 10 new votes.”
Murphy said all were welcome to join the Federation so long as they abided by the current bylaws. However, she questioned the new clubs’ authenticity, saying some of their members were not known active chess players.
Widmer and Kershaw countered with accusations that Murphy, who speaks with a pronounced New England accent, may not be a valid representative of the Virgin Islands as she is only a part-time resident. Murphy runs a business and files taxes in New Hampshire and is registered to vote there, they said.
As of Sunday, the Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Chess Federation, known as FIDE, listed Murphy as the Virgin Islands Chess Federation president. The clash between Widmer and Murphy goes back decades and has ensnared some of the world’s most recognized chess celebrities, including former FIDE leadership.
As much as both sides sought to frame the disagreement as doing what was best for Virgin Islands chess players, including young students of the game, again and again it became personal. In hours of separate telephone conversations with The Source and many email exchanges, Murphy and Widmer peppered their descriptions of the situation with veiled character attacks and innuendos of personal impropriety.
One back-and-forth involved Murphy renting a room from Widmer for several years in the early 2000s, about the time she became president of the Chess Federation. Murphy alleged someone had rifled through her chess paperwork while she was away, knocking over a chessboard. Widmer said Murphy frequently left her door wide open and that it was likely a curious cat that knocked the board over.
Nearly 30 years later, Widmer still bristles at the exchange.
“This is a horrible insinuation and so very inappropriate. But regurgitating poisonous lies and fabricating ‘alternative facts’ is her forte. Once, when she lived downstairs, she told me she enjoyed hitting below the belt. It gave me a chill. Thirty years later she is exactly the same,” Widmer said.
The next USVI Chess Federation annual meeting is scheduled for March 29, 2025, according to usvichessfederation.com. Whether a legal checkmate happens before then is yet unknown.
