This is a concept that could only be born completely on the Internet. There have been teams of players that have challenged masters and grandmasters long before, but they have always gathered in one place. The logistics otherwise and horrendous to overcome. Now via email, teams of players can correspond and vote on the best move (in their opinion) to play versus a highly rated player.
This was the concept that Stephen Ham of the NOST began....
In April 1998, Les Roselle challenged me to write a column for Nostalgia. I felt obliged to contribute something to the Correspondence Chess World, but my dilemma was in making a "meaningful" contribution. If I wrote a column, what could I do that hadn’t already been done before? Sure, I could show off some of my wins, but that’s too trite. What could I do that would have value for the readership and still be original? Then I remembered that when I was an aspiring chess player, I always played people who were rated in the middle of the pack, just like me. Instead I dreamed of getting a chance to play against a master or a famous chess player, just to see how I would fare. Regardless of the outcome, I knew I would learn a great deal, and hopefully the master would help to pull me up to "the next level". If given that chance, I knew I would study the game to the best of my ability, just to try to defeat the master. So perhaps I could offer something like that to NOST; I could be the master/famous player since I was now a Senior Master rated 2432 and finished second in the 1994 US Absolute Championship. Additionally, I wanted to combine this notion of playing NOST members with something I saw Master Stephan Gerzadowicz do in his chess column, namely keep a live annotation of the game in progress for all to read.
Thus, the Interactive Chess Challenge was born. I challenged all NOST members to a game where the move getting the greatest number of votes was the move officially played. I provide live notes, once it was clear my analysis/commentary would not directly influence NOST’s moves. This program is history making as well since this event is strictly an e-mail correspondence challenge (although one master level opponent telephoned in his moves since he lacked e-mail).
The first challenge game saw me rapidly defeat the NOST team when I had the White pieces.
View the first challenge game: NOST versus Stephen Ham, with annotations
NOST then wanted a rematch, but to play more competitively, the NOST side, named NOST Gold had the following advantages:
I won that match too. Concurrently, the non-master NOST team, named NOST Silver, played White against Dr. Howard Trimpi. Dr. Trimpi won that game as well. Although I reported the annotations in Nostalgia, I somehow lost my notes to that game from my computer hard drive, so unfortunately that game is not archived here.
View NOST Gold versus Stephen Ham, with annotations
Finally NOST Silver is playing a rematch with Dr. Howard Trimpi. You are thus invited to join the game already in progress.
View NOST Silver versus Dr. Howard Trimpi, in progress