Real Time Remote Team v. Team Match Logistics ?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

The internet makes it easy for two people to play chess against each other in real time, even though they live 1000 miles apart.
But how can a group of chess club regulars, gathered at their club in say Chicago, play a remote real time team match against another club in Boston?

Our chess club has one 56kb internet connection, and one computer. How could 8 or 16 of us play games against remote opponents, all at the same time on a Saturday afternoon?
In 8 concurrent games, a move would occur every 15 seconds. 8 players cannot crowd around one computer.

The logistics of having a couple of tournament helpers at the Chicago club shuttle moves back and forth between the computer and all the Chicago players are daunting, and would seem to breakdown once the number of concurrent players exceeds perhaps 4.

Near bottom of page 19 of Chess Life April 2004, the advert for the Karpov school says “Every camp will have a distance chess match with a team from St. Petersburg”. How will they execute this match logistically?

Thank you.

2

When you say a team match do you mean that everybody will vote on the move to be played in one single game. Or the kind of match as in the Amateur teams playoff?

3

Well, ideally, both the teams would have access to a computer lab with at least one PC for each player.

We have unrated tournaments at my club like this all the time. When we run out of tounament boards and clocks for rated sections, we set up an unrated section to play in the computer lab in my school. The players all login to an internet chess server and play each other via the server.

Regards,
AJG