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| Postal play then |
Tactical wins are a thing of the past; success requires superior strategy. One top level CC player described his method for selecting a move as given below and added that about the only good program for using this method is Aquarium’s IdeA.
1) Do an infinite analysis for several hours (perhaps overnight)
2) Go to the end of the line and start an infinite analysis on the end position for a reasonable period of time. How much time you want to spend doing this depends on how much time and/or patience you have.
3) Step backwards to the previous move and do the same thing. As you do this you will notice the engine may suggest a better move. You will explore these new suggestions in a similar manner.
4) Eventually you will have worked your way back to the starting position. By that time you should have a pretty good idea of the best line.
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| Correspondence play now |
After Pillsbury's success at Hastings in 1895 a meeting was held in January, 1896 in Chicago and the Pillsbury National Correspondence Chess Association (PCAA) was organized.
In March of 1896 the PCCA President, Edward Runge, received a letter from Pillsbury saying he was pleased with the founding of the organization and any use of his name that would increase the interest in chess was freely given.
The PCCA only had 50 members and in 1897 they began their first correspondence tournament, the Grand National. Dr. Otto Meyer of Richmond, Virginia was the winner.
The club struggled until late 1905 or early 1906 when all of a sudden, the tournaments stopped for unknown reasons. However, the PCCA revived in the Fall of 1907, but the only person doing any work in the club was a fellow named George Walcott and so the club soon folded for good in a couple of years.
A fellow named Stanley Chadwick had won a few tournaments and had qualified for the second round of their 1905 Grand National, but he quit the PCCA in 1909 and founded his own club which eventually became the Correspondence Chess League of America (CCLA).
The Jamuary 17, 1916 edition of the magazine Chess News, edited by the secretary of the Boston Chess Club George H. Wolcott, carried an amusing article on postal chess:
Saving for postage is one of the pleasures of a chess player. He walks up to the little window, leaves there some of his good coin, receiving in return that which enables him to communicate with his friends in far away cities. There is no sport, no other pastime, as dependent as chess upon the mail service.
The article then went on to express the opinion that Americans were disposed to take the government for granted, leaving it to the powers that be to make changes, improvements or otherwise. But, when it came to the matter of first class postage, an immediate readjustment of the rate was needed and apparently the government was lax in that area and needed prodding by the citizens.
The magazine complained that an abnormal profit was being made from a public service (i.e. the post office) that should be merely self-supporting. It was pointed out that although all letters cost two cents to mail, only a small portion of them weighed the full ounce permitted and it actually cost the government less than one cent each to handle them. This resulted in the accumulation of a surplus of over eighty million dollars each year on first class letter mail!
Wolcott asked what happened to this eighty million dollar surplus then proceeded to answer his own question. Second class mail service was for publishers who paid one cent per pound for newspapers and magazines. Each year the deficit in the for handling this second class mail was...wait for it...eighty million dollars. Thus the good citizens who wrote letters (which included postal chess players using post cards) were subsidizing publishers of newspapers and magazines.
There was an organization that was trying to do something about this awful situation, the National One Cent Letter Postage Association headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The group was asking that each group of mail users pay for the cost of the service they were being provided and that writers of letters (and post cards) no longer be taxed 100 percent to subsidize publishers of periodicals. Wolcott concluded with the plea for readers to: Write to the Association; do it now.
In the following lively correspondence game the players were Mordecai Morgan of Philadelphia and J. E. Narraway of Ottawa, Canada, both well known players of the day. The play is complicated and some of the positions are very subtle with many hidden points.
In 1884, he beat Zukertort in a simul and in 1892 he beat the future world champion Lasker. In 1887, he tied for first with Samuel W. Bampton and W. H. Schultz. He then went on to win the championships in 1888, 1891 and 1894.
In 1888, Morgan became one of the directors of the Franklin Chess Club in Philadelpha, and was reelected in 1891, 1894 and 1897. He also became the treasurer of the Pennsylvania Chess Association in 1897.
In the Franklin Chess Club championship in 1894, Morgan was the runner up behind Emil Kemeny. He dominated the 1895/1896 championship, won in 1903 and again in 1905.
Morgan was active in telegraph matches between the Franklin Chess Club and the Manhattan Chess Club and he participated in the Anglo-American cable match in 1907. In addition, he wrote the four volumes work Chess Digest (Philadelphia, 1901-1905).
James E. Narraway (June 11, 1857 – June 16, 1947, 90 years old) was born in either Guysboro, Nova Scotia or in Sackville, New Brunswick; nobody is sure which one.
Before moving to Ottawa in 1887, he was the champion of Saint John, New Brunswick for several years. He beat Sam Loyd on top board in a team correspondence match of players between the USA and Canada.
In 1888 he tied for first place in the Canadian Championship and was awarded 3rd place after play-off. He won the championship outright three times: 1893,1897, 1898. He also won several prestigious correspondence tournaments in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Narraway, an accountant, worked in Civil Service for the Canadian government. Also, as a paleontologist he made two discoveries on the banks of Ottawa River accepted by Royal Ontario Museum and British Museum.
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