Imagine going over to your local chess club to play a game, one in a sequence to achieve your norm (you also have to imagine you are the local tyro!).  The TD indicates your table which has one chair, an ordinary looking wooden board, the usual club pieces, and says "15 minutes".

You have been preparing mentally and physically all week and didn't waste time or money traveling to a distant city, staying in a cheap motel, and risking unusual food.

At the appointed time the TD starts your clock and 6 seconds later the clock displays your opponent's first move, 1.e4.  You make your own move, press the clock, and after a few more moves look across to the computer which shows the board position, available time for each player, move count and moves made, and a video picture of your opponent Wang Li and his immediate surroundings, 13,000 miles away.

After 33 moves into a Sicilian Pelikan, Sveshnikov variation, you press a special button on your clock which offers a draw - and a little to your surprise it is accepted!  This is a good result because your opponent is rated 2450 ELO and you were playing-up 50 points with the black bits, and besides... lurking at the back of your mind was the realization that <gulp> 7,000 people were watching the game in real time on the net - with expert commentary you couldn't hear.

Science Fiction?  At this time of writing this article for Chessville, July 31st 2003, Mark Taimanov has already written his copy for the famous Russian magazine "64" titled "The Future of Chess" to be published in the next issue, and sparked by one extraordinary event at the end of May in, well, in Paris and St. Petersburg.

The players, commentators and officials were like some sort of chess Oscar ceremony.  The players for St. Petersburg: Alexander Khalifman, Peter Svidler, Victor Korchnoi, Konstantin Sakaev; and for the Paris NAO Club; Vladimir Kramnik, Teimour Radjabov, Laurent Fressinet, and the 12 year old youngest GM in the world Sergey Karjakin.  Garry Kasparov regretted that he couldn't commentate because of playing commitments, however Anatoly Karpov and Boris Spassky provided sparkling commentary and annotations, with Mark Taimanov directing the press center.  Joel Lautier was the commentator in Paris.

Chief match arbiter in Petersburg was Geurt Gijssen (Netherlands) and international arbiter Yakov Damsky (Russia) was in Paris.

	Moves and video images of the players were transmitted to each other and to the internet.  The match was resolved by a decisive game by Viktor Korchnoi in favor of the St. Petersburg team.
GM Viktor Korchnoi

Interesting?  Aleksander Zhukov, President of the Russian Chess Federation, thought so, "Surely, we will arrange such events in the future, as teams of any level including the highest can take part.  The match was very spectacular and I especially liked the annotations of Spassky and Karpov."

The President of Fide, Kirsan Ilumzhinov, seemed to go one further, "This match is an excellent method to popularize chess!  Now it is possible to arrange matches between continents, countries and cities without expenses of planes, hotels..."

From Geurt Gijssen, "The match is an exceptionally important event!  Nowadays when organizers have serious trouble getting money and expenses connected with organizing chess tournaments Distance Chess opens excellent perspectives."

	Participating GM Peter Svidler commented on the importance of the arbiter being present in the same room and on being able to see your opponent, adding "we have to support the people who try and invent something new in our game."
GM Peter Svidler

Also participating was the Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik who said "A lot of people play on the internet.  I play there rarely because I do not wield the PC mouse well.  But it was a pleasure to play over the 'live' sensory board and I had a full feeling that I played a normal tournament game.  I think Distance Chess has a good future."

Paris Commentator GM Lautier added "It is good that people will come to chess clubs more often to take part in such events.  Today's match is a great achievement."
	GM Joel Lautier

So, as I write this brief introduction to Distance Chess for an American cyber-publisher, it is in the knowledge that stratospheric levels in world chess are stimulated by "the most important development in chess in years" and it is coming here soon.

In the following articles I will try and trace the development of the technology, player's contributions to technology and rules structures, historical and current problems, and most interesting of all, the view forward for the United States which is getting its (serious players) feet wet in a forthcoming event, ending an isolation started in 1947.

GM Joel Lautier and Boris Yeshan

I should also mention the architect of this event which captured everyone's imagination and enthusiasm on 26 May, 2003.  I have worked with him for 7 years now, and he is a consistently modest man who seems to obtain the trust of a great many senior chess people, especially players of the first rank, Boris Yeshan.
 

Phil Innes, 31 July, 2003

Part Two - The Technology