Harvey - Postal Chess with the Sinclair Spectrum

[Bryan Whitby]

Hi Harvey
I have quite often read that you play/played postal chess and was wondering who you played for?
Back in the eighties and nineties, I played a lot of postal chess. I was/am a Life President of the British Postal Chess Federation where I played in ICCF World and European tournaments plus represented England in friendly Internationals. On the home front I was a life member of the British Correspondent Chess Society.
It was during this era that I produced a graphical chess database called 'The Chess Data System' for the Sinclair Spectrum that enabled me to store all my postal chess games on. When I ever started a new game, I would send a letter of introduction with my first move and mentioning my chess program. On quite a few occasions my opponents also had a Spectrum and I would ask them if they would like to use my program to send the moves on (high tech for those days). If they agreed, I would send them my first move on a copy of my chess program, they would then load my program into their Spectrum, make and save their move onto the cassette and send it back. This meant that when you received the move back from your opponent, all you had to do was load the cassette via your tape recorder into the Spectrum and 'Hey Presto' there was his move on the Chess Data System.
Although I have not played postal chess for quite a considerable period of time I see that there are still the odd few playing.
Is one of these you Harvey?
Regards
Bryan

[Harvey Williamson]

Hi Harvey
I have quite often read that you play/played postal chess and was wondering who you played for?
Back in the eighties and nineties, I played a lot of postal chess. I was/am a Life President of the British Postal Chess Federation where I played in ICCF World and European tournaments plus represented England in friendly Internationals. On the home front I was a life member of the British Correspondent Chess Society.
It was during this era that I produced a graphical chess database called 'The Chess Data System' for the Sinclair Spectrum that enabled me to store all my postal chess games on. When I ever started a new game, I would send a letter of introduction with my first move and mentioning my chess program. On quite a few occasions my opponents also had a Spectrum and I would ask them if they would like to use my program to send the moves on (high tech for those days). If they agreed, I would send them my first move on a copy of my chess program, they would then load my program into their Spectrum, make and save their move onto the cassette and send it back. This meant that when you received the move back from your opponent, all you had to do was load the cassette via your tape recorder into the Spectrum and 'Hey Presto' there was his move on the Chess Data System.
Although I have not played postal chess for quite a considerable period of time I see that there are still the odd few playing.
Is one of these you Harvey?
Regards
Bryan

Hi Bryan,

I am still playing. I was playing mainly with the BCCS but they have sadly folded. I am now playing games on the ICCF server http://www.iccf-webchess.com/Default.aspx

Your program sounds really good and would have been very useful in those days!

Best Wishes,
Harvey

[Bryan Whitby]

Hi Harvey
One little trick I used to do to save on postage was to get my new opponent (when I was playing in one of the BCCS events) to use a scoresheet with a window envelope to show your name & address.
The trick is now to stick the stamp on the top left hand side of the envelope instead of the right. What happens is that the automatic franking machines at the postal depot detect the stamp (even though it is on the wrong side of the envelope) and will frank the envelope as usual in the correct position on the right, leaving the stamp in pristine condition. This way you get basically a complete game for just the price of one stamp, or until the envelope disintegrates with frank marks!!
Bryan

[Harvey Williamson]

Hi Harvey
One little trick I used to do to save on postage was to get my new opponent (when I was playing in one of the BCCS events) to use a scoresheet with a window envelope to show your name & address.
The trick is now to stick the stamp on the top left hand side of the envelope instead of the right. What happens is that the automatic franking machines at the postal depot detect the stamp (even though it is on the wrong side of the envelope) and will frank the envelope as usual in the correct position on the right, leaving the stamp in pristine condition. This way you get basically a complete game for just the price of one stamp, or until the envelope disintegrates with frank marks!!
Bryan

I still have a stack of those envelopes and score cards. I have not played a game by post for a few years now. sadly I was not clever enough to do your trick with the stamp