USCL

“The United States needed a high level chess league”
1 October 2008 18:00 PM
Chessvibes.com

Grandmaster Joel Benjamin, three-time United States champion, stares at the chessboard, pondering his next move. His team, the New Jersey Knockouts is up against their United States Chess League Eastern Division rivals, the Boston Blitz. Slowly, with a deliberate cadence practiced so many times, Benjamin reaches for his bishop, and draws it back to e3.

By Robert N. Bernard

His Boston opponent and good friend, Grandmaster Larry Christiansen, responds to the move by sliding his own bishop to h6. It’s a blunder, and Benjamin realizes it. He looks up, across the board to gauge his opponent’s reaction. Only he sees nothing… nothing but the soft glow of the computer screen in front of him. Christiansen is hundreds of kilometers away, warmed by the soft glow of his own monitor.

It’s just a typical Wednesday night in the United States Chess League (USCL), now in its fourth year of existence. In the USCL, all games are played over the internet, using the Internet Chess Club (ICC) as the medium. Fourteen teams, from all across the USA, compete in weekly four-board matches against their opponents on either Monday or Wednesday nights. Players travel to their team’s playing site, where their games are supervised by USCL arbiters. The ten-week season runs from late August to the end of October, followed by the playoffs for three weeks in November.

Here is the full article on chessvibes.