A correspondence chess challenge match will begin on December 1, 1999 matching USCF Senior Master Steve Ham (ICCF rated 2508) of Minneapolis, Minnesota against two top chess engines, Nimzo 7.32 and the just-released Fritz 6. This match will consist of 2-game matches; each chess engine gets one white and one black vs. their human opponent. The ChessBase USA company will provide the chess engines and computer (Compaq Presario 5461 Pentium III 500 MHz. with 64MB RAM of which 48MB RAM is dedicated to the chess engine) for the match. Don Maddox (President of ChessBase USA) will personally supervise the operation of the computer. These games will be played as correspondence chess games, offering us an opportunity to see how well the best chess engines coupled with one of the fastest computers can perform under these conditions.

The match was inspired by a discussion on The Correspondence Chess Message Board (TCCMB) at:

where discussion centered both upon the effects of computer chess engines in correspondence chess and how much help a computer can offer a player in cc events. Senior Master Ham will play without the assistence of a chess engine and the computer chess engines will play without human assistence.

These two 2-game matches can be followed "live" via the Internet. The moves of the two games between Steve Ham and Nimzo 7.32 will be posted on the main page of The Campbell Report web site at:

with frequent detailed notes added by SM Ham explaining the games as they progress. The two games vs. Fritz 6 can be followed at the ChessBase USA web site at: