A new venture by the IECC is to facilitate collaborative chess matches by email, between schools.
School chess club organisers, worldwide, are invited to contact the IECC and request an email match with another school of a similar age-range, by writing to the Club at iecc-directors@yahoogroups.com, with their details.
The progress of the game is copied periodically to the IECC, so that the details can be displayed in the school chess section of this website, and the game results will be rated and added to the club archives in the normal way.
Collaborative means that the students in the school chess club work out their next move jointly at a club meeting, and the supervising teacher then emails the move to the chess club organiser of the other school.
The advantage of this system is that the students are introduced to the enjoyment of email chess, in a completely safe way.
Feedback from the schools is very positive. The students in the first match have enjoyed this form of chess, and are looking forward to more opponents, and a return match in the fall. The staff are finding it interesting to observe how the moves of opponents are analysed by the group, and how their next move is selected.
The first match of this type was between two US middle schools:
[Event "IECC School Challenge"] [Site "IECC"] [Date "2008.11.03"] [White "Taft Middle School Cedar Rapids, IA"] [Black "Jackson Middle School Jackson, Ohio"] [Result "0-1"] 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3 Nc6 4. Nxd4 Nxd4 5.Qxd4 Qb6 6.Be3 Qxd4 7.Bxd4 b6 8.Nc3 Bb7 9.Na4 Bxe4 10.O-O-O Rc8 11.Nc3 f5 12.Nxe4 fxe4 13. Ba6 Rc6 14. Rhe1 Re6 15. Bc4 Rg6 16.g3 Nh6 17.Bd5 e6 18.Bxe4 Rg4 19.Bd5 Bc5 20.Rd3 Rxd4 21. Rxd4 Bxd4 22.f4 0-0 23.Bb3 Ng4 24.Rd1 Be3+ 25.Kb1 d5 26.Re1 Rc8 27.h3 Bf2 28.Rf1 Bxg3 29.hxg4 Rf8 30.Rd1 Rxf4 31.c3 Rxg4 0-1
The Board welcomes queries from interested parties, who should write to the Board at iecc-directors@yahoogroups.com, with their details.