Just heard this news and quite a remarkable tournament director as she was a constant presence at the World Amateur Team Championships here in NJ. My condolences to the Jarecki family at this time.
Respectfully Submitted,
David A. Cole, USCF Life Member, Franklin, NJ
U.S. Chess has suffered yet another shocking loss with this latest sad news. This one isn’t entirely surprising, though, as she had been fighting a serious illness for a little while.
Bill Smythe
I remember Carol from back in the 80’s when I played OTB and she directed some events I played in.I am very sorry to hear this-she was a class act.
Nice NYT obit by Dylan.
nytimes.com/2021/06/14/us/c … -dead.html
Thanks for posting this!
Nick Faulks posted this on the English Chess Forum:
I spent a fair amount of time with Carol at last year’s FIDE Congress. She was as spry of mind as ever, and almost the same in body. She was of course 85, but you would not have known it and she clearly had no intention of dying in the forseeable future.
For over thirty years, whenever an international event was planned in Bermuda, the first question was “is Carol available?”. If not, arrangements were altered to get the right answer. The island offered many attractions to visiting GMs, but as far as the chess itself was concerned, players up to the level of Gelfand and Svidler needed only to be told that IA Jarecki would be in charge for any questions as to whether the event would be well organised to disappear.
While she occupied many senior position - you don’t get higher than a World Championship match - she was also brilliant at lower levels. Her skills came to the forefront at Olympiads, where she dealt diplomatically and effectively with problems resulting from both players and arbiters being unfamiliar with the basic rules of competitive chess. In similar vein, for many years she handled US scholastic events containing infeasibly large numbers of competitors ranging in strength from beginner to Master.
I was always impressed by her flying of small planes. She flew her own everywhere in North America and the Caribbean ( usually accompanied by a small and well behaved dog ) and when travelling in Europe would rent a two seater plane with as little fuss as the rest of us would hire a car. Her fluency in many languages was helpful when communicating with air traffic controllers at secondary airstrips whose command of English was not perfect.
Rather than going on forever, I shall finish by saying that she was a qualified nurse, which came in handy at more than one tournament.