Internet Chess

The two islands are 8,600 km apart, and normally a match between eight-board national selections from both places would be exorbitantly expensive to arrange...Unless of course you use the Internet based Playchess server and webcams to stage the event, write Ger Jan Meijer and Duncan Vella about today's Exhibition match Curaçao – Malta. From ChessBase News:

On Saturday March 11th 2006, the two islands of Curaçao and Malta will play a very important exhibition match against each other via the Playchess Server courtesy of ChessBase. There is a huge geographical distance of around 8,600 kilometres between both islands, Curaçao in the Caribbean and Malta in the Mediterranean...A national selection from both islands will play each other over eight boards. Both teams will come together in their Chessboard Rooms that will be equipped also with Webcams. Emily de Jong-Elhage, Prime minister of the Netherlands Antilles, will open the sportive encounter between the two islands.

After the match with Malta, Curaçao will also play several Rapid matches against teams of the city of Utrecht (Netherlands). The matches are an initiative of the Right Move Campaign ("For a Bona FIDE"). The team wants to establish an international team competition over the internet. This will allow countries, which suffer from isolated locations, to participate in meaningful international competitions without suffering from mega air transfer and hotel costs...