This article was in today’s NY Times.
It’s mildly irritating that “our” side of the story wasn’t properly presented. It was in the USA that Caruana developed from raw beginner to GM:
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12743305.17
Fabiano Caruana is a fine young man who represents Italy well. That he is reluctant to switch federations a second time for mere financial advantage speaks to his character. But if he so chose, he would represent the US well, too.
I suspect that Nakamura speaks better Italian.
I know that Nakamura speaks better Italian. Caruana uses Spain as his home base, not Italy.
However, even though Caruana is the most prominent “target” for the US, does the US really want this sort of reputation? IMHO I think we’d be better off trying to emulate the Chinese home grown project they started some time ago which has eventually netted them a Women’s World Champion and the most recent Olympiad gold.
“The US loves winners.” In professional sports, when a couple of teams were buying up all of the best players and using the small market teams as virtual farm teams, everyone hated those teams. I laughed at one of the comments at the end of the article, “Have we run out of ways for people in other countries to hate the US?”
Surprised to hear that the USCF set up a special fund to recruit players. When did this happen? Are our membership dollars paying for this or is the fund coming from rich benefactors? Is this what we are using our 501(c)(3) status for?
We don’t have any money at all in this fund. We have a structure set up that would facilitate raising money for professional player development. We have not done any such fund raising at all.
Exactly what such a fund will and won’t do, how it will work and all is presently being studied and things are not finalized. The proposals for the fund are much broader than what was outlined in the article.
Good point. Put money consistently and long term in development programs and starting chess leagues here and the results will be better than hunting top players to switch federations. In the immediate term, I’m coming to view Rex as more of the problem than the solution. IMMHO, Rex and USCF leadership, like Mr. Bauer as quoted in the Times article, display a singular lack of developmental vision. Your opinion may vary…and that’s OK.
Does Caruana speak Spanish as well as Anand (of India) and Topalov (of Bulgaria) do? The ease with which top GMs add languages in adulthood is very impressive…even Anand’s conversational German is excellent.
Back to the topic of the thread… I think our policy should be to welcome new players with open arms, but I’m leery of “recruiting” new players to represent the US at the Olympiad level. Even NHL and NBA stars generally play for their country of birth in the Olympics.
Caruana’s case is a special one.
I have a recollection from maybe eight years ago that there was discussion of why Caruna left the US to live in Italy and play for the Italians. It was said by some that the USCF really had not much to offer him and the opportunities for excellent competition on a regular basis were more numerous in Europe. Also, that it was easier to travel from Italy to Eastern Europe and Russia than from the US.
Regardless of his reasons then, I think anyone with the opportunity to live and earn ones living in Italy or just about anywhere else in Europe would be crazy to not live there. Let me think how Rex might posit the offer…Italy or St. Louis? Spain or St. Louis? The Netherlands or St. Louis? The UK or St. Louis? Denmark or St. Louis? Maybe if Rex offered to buy Fabio a condo in Manhattan and pay the monthly charges for the next thirty years… 
I think you’re missing an important point here. You don’t have to live in the US to represent the US at chess. I think Nakamura spends most of his time in Italy nowadays and Zatonskih lives in Germany.
Caruana did indeed relocate to get better opportunities to achieve his GM title and be closer to the main chess action. I’m not sure why it was necessary to switch his chess federation to Italy to do that but maybe he received support/compensation somehow from the Italian Federation.
As a practical matter, many top invitationals invite only one US player. Despite Italy’s rich contribution to chess (Salvio, Greco, del Rio, Ponziani, Lolli), the Italians had a dry spell for a couple of centuries. So Caruana’s change of federation made it easier for him to get invitations to top events.
One of the best ways for top Americans to get more invitations is for the US to organize more invitational events for top foreign players. And it shouldn’t all fall upon the nice couple in St. Louis.
Have Giri, Navara, Ding Liren, or Tomashevsky ever played in the USA? Wei Yi will be playing for the World Championship soon enough: it would be cool to see him play in the US in the near future.
And a vibrant chess culture will lead to more immigrants…passive recruiting is the best recruiting.