The First National Team Championship of the USA (NTC-1)
The First National Team Championship (normally referred
to as NTC-1) was a significant event in the history of
correspondence chess in the USA. The domestic cc organization in the USA
is divided among several cc clubs, each having its own tournaments,
publications and rating systems. To complicate things, many cc competitors
hold membership in multiple organizations. When it came time to contest
a championship between these organizations many players had to decide which
organization to play for. In some cases an individual played for the first
team that contacted him ... which benefitted the team with the best (and
fastest) recruiting. The final standings of this championship event were:
- APCT (American Postal Chess Tournaments)
- CCLA (Correspondence Chess League of America)
- USCF (United States Chess Federation)
- NOST (kNights Of the Square Table)
In additional to reflecting the chess-playing skills
of members, this championship was also very much a measure of the
ability of each organization's ability to recruit, organize and manage a
team event.
The attempt here is to document this significant competition and to publically
recognize the accomplishments (and failures) of the participating organizations.
All the major groups participated. APCT, CCLA and USCF are the three major
cc organizations in the USA. If this event were organized today ASPCC (Armed
Services Postal Chess Club) would
probably be invited to play as well. The smaller NOST (kNights Of the Square
Table) was also invited to play. The fifth organization competing was TCC.
When NTC-1 started TCC (The Chess Connection) was a significant group with
many strong players and high prizefund tournaments. The TCC magazine was
outstanding. Unfortunately, TCC failed during the early stages
of NTC-1 creating a difficult situation and leading to some controversy,
partly because TCC failed to deliver the entry fees collected from
team members for NTC-1 to the organizer ICCF-U.S. In the
end it was decided that TCC would not be involved in the team competition.
In fairness to the TCC team members they were allowed to continue competition
as individuals. Therefore, the 50 board crosstables show all the original
competitors, but the team standings do not count the TCC results. The official
standings show losses in all TCC games, giving a false impression of the
results of the other teams (who mostly scored over 50% as a result). Since the
TCC results could not affect the team results, other standings are presented
which simply ignore the TCC games, giving a better impression of the
accomplishments of the other teams.
The TCC failure understandingly led to
some withdrawals and premature resignations by TCC team members. The official
board crosstables do not reflect withdrawals or forfeits. I have added
footnotes to some crosstables indicating my best understanding of where losses
were a result of such withdrawals or forfeits. In some cases there were
double-forfeits, explaining why the total scores don't always add up to the
expected totals (both players were given losses in these games).
I invite input from others who were involved in this spectacular event. If
you have additional information or viewpoints
send them to me
and I'll add them to
a page of NTC-1 commentary. I'm sure there are many details that aren't
commonly known. If you have such information, please contribute to this
public record of NTC-1!
Special thanks to Maggie and Roy DeVault for providing material and
analzing & correcting the faulty game records, a difficult task. Some of the
information in this report came from the APCT Team
Newsletter, a quarterly
publication (ten issues) edited by me and containing many contributions
by APCT team members, APCT Team Captain Jon Voth and the APCT Director
Helen Warren, who did most of the recruiting for the team and supplied
valuable support for the team throughout the competition.
Note: This project is a continuing effort. I'll add to these pages as
more information becomes available. A database of the games
should be available for downloading soon. Corrections to any factual
information would be appreciated.
Following are links to transcripts of documents describing The National Team
Championship of the United States, which started play on 1 March 1991
and had a planned closeout date of 1 March 1994. There are links to the complete
crosstables for the 50 boards and several sets of statistics covering the team
scores at regular intervals.
The American Postal Chess Tournaments (APCT)
organization displayed its superior organizational and chess-playing skills
by dominating this event and is the current reigning national cc champion
of the USA. The following tournament report is dedicated to all the people
who made this great victory possible. Five teams started the contest, four
finished. As editor of the APCT
team newsletter I'll have additional "inside" information to spice up the
official statistics. -- J. Franklin Campbell
| 
