page_title: Correspondence chess
section_title: Regulatory bodies
hierarchical_section_title: Correspondence chess / Regulatory bodies
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a trimmed image of "Back of correspondence chess card.tif" transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Bubba73. This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1977 and without a copyright notice.
context_page_description: Correspondence chess is chess or variant chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, often through a correspondence chess server, a public internet chess forum, email, or the postal system. Less common methods that have been employed include fax, homing pigeon and phone. It is in contrast to over-the-board chess, where the players sit at a chessboard at the same time, or play at the same time remotely.
  Correspondence chess allows people or clubs who are geographically distant to play one another without meeting in person. These distant relationships are just one of the many distinct appeals of correspondence chess. The length of a game played by correspondence can vary depending on the method used to transmit moves: a game played via server or by email might last no more than a few days, weeks, or months; a game played by post between players in different countries might last several years.
context_section_description: Correspondence chess tournaments are usually played under the auspices of an official regulatory body, most importantly the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF), which is affiliated with FIDE, the international chess organization. However, the ICCF, which organizes postal and email events, is not the only organization involved in correspondence chess. There are numerous national and regional bodies for postal chess, as well as a number of organisations devoted to organizing email play for free such as the International Email Chess Group (IECG), the Free Internet Correspondence Games Server (FICGS), that also runs a world championship cycle, and International E-mail Chess Club (IECC). However, groups other than the ICCF are not sanctioned by FIDE.
  The ICCF awards the titles International Master, Senior International Master and International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster—these are equivalent to similar titles awarded by FIDE for over-the-board chess. The ICCF also runs the World Correspondence Chess Championships. Because these events can last a long time, they may overlap: for instance, in February 2005 Joop van Oosterom was declared winner of the eighteenth Championship (which began in June 2003), though the winner of the seventeenth Championship (which began in March 2002) had not yet been determined.
  Up until 2004, ICCF correspondence chess was played only via email and postal mail. For playing by these two forms of transmission, the ICCF developed their own game notation, known as the ICCF numeric notation, especially for the purpose of ICCF correspondence chess.
  In recent years, the use of increasingly powerful chess programs has brought forth new challenges for organizations like the ICCF and the U.S. Chess Federation, necessitating sometimes controversial decisions on the admissibility of such programs in official correspondence play.
  Moreover, the emergence of the Internet has brought new opportunities for correspondence chess, not all of which are organized by official bodies. Casual correspondence chess includes correspondence play initiated through correspondence chess servers and games played between individuals who meet and play on their own. Casual correspondence play does not lead to official ratings, though some chess servers will calculate ratings for the players based on results on that server.
caption: Postcard used by the US Chess Federation
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