Days-per-move clocks
Choose 1, 3, 5, 7, or 15 days per move. The clock only ticks down on your turn, so you control the pace.
Correspondence chess
What is correspondence chess?
Correspondence chess is a form of chess where each player has hours, days, or even weeks to make a single move. Instead of racing a clock, you think deeply, study the position carefully, and play your best move whenever you're ready — just like the great masters did when chess was played by post.
Days
Per move, not minutes per game.
Many
Run several games at once.
Anywhere
Phone, laptop, on the go.
Anytime
Move when it suits you.
Why play correspondence chess
Chess that fits your life, not the other way around.
Live chess is a sprint. Correspondence chess is a marathon, a puzzle, and a study session all at once. You don't need to set aside an uninterrupted hour. You play one move on the morning train, another after dinner, another before bed. The board waits for you.
Because you have time, you can analyze deeply, calculate variations carefully, and try ideas you'd never risk in a five-minute blitz. It's how serious players sharpen their understanding — and it's how a lot of beautiful chess gets played.
Live chess vs. correspondence chess
Same game, very different experience.
| Live chess | Correspondence chess | |
|---|---|---|
| Time per move | Seconds to a few minutes. | Hours, days, sometimes longer. |
| Game length | Minutes from start to finish. | Days to weeks/months per game. |
| Pace | Sit down, focus, finish. | A move at a time, around your day. |
| Multiple games | One at a time. | Run dozens at once. |
| Style of thinking | Quick pattern recognition. | Deep calculation and study. |
| Best for | Quick fun, focused practice. | Deep improvement, busy schedules, real long-form chess. |
A short history
From the postal service to your pocket.
Correspondence chess is older than the chess clock. Players in different cities, and later in different countries, would write their moves on postcards and mail them to opponents. A single game could take a year or more. World championships were played this way long before the internet existed.
Online correspondence chess keeps the spirit of those games — deep, considered, played around the rest of life — but cuts the wait from weeks to seconds. Your move arrives the moment you make it, the board is always with you on your phone, and a single notification tells you when it's your turn.
On ChessHere
Correspondence chess, the way it should work.
Most platforms treat correspondence chess as an afterthought. We treat it like the heart of the game. Here's everything you get when you play a correspondence game on ChessHere.
Conditional moves
Plan ahead. Set "if my opponent plays X, I play Y" and we'll play it for you the moment the position arrives. Save days of waiting in forced lines.
Vacation mode
Going away? Sick? Pause every one of your games at once with a single tap. Your clocks stop until you come back.
Reminders that fit you
Email, web, or phone — pick how we let you know it's your turn. Never miss a move just because life got busy.
My-turn dashboard
Every active game at a glance. See whose turn it is, how much time is left, and what's about to time out.
Tournaments
Real tournaments at a correspondence pace. Standings, fair pairings, real winners — events that actually finish.
Separate rating
Your correspondence rating is tracked separately from your bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical ratings. Slow and fast skill aren't the same thing.
Phone-friendly
Our mobile app means your games are always with you. Move on the train, on a break, before bed.
Save your games
Download your finished games to study, share, or keep forever. Your chess history is yours.
Why correspondence makes you better
The thinking time you wish you had in your live games.
You actually calculate.
In a five-minute blitz you guess. With a day to think, you can play out variations five and ten moves deep, the way the position deserves.
You can learn between moves.
Time to look up an opening, study a similar middlegame, work through an endgame technique. Every game becomes a study session.
You play more games at once.
A handful of correspondence games running in parallel gives you more chess in less of your day than any single live session ever could.
No tilt, no time scrambles.
When you play badly in a flag, the next game still hangs over your head. In correspondence, every move gets your full attention, calmly.
Getting started
New to correspondence chess? Start here.
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1
Start with three days per move.
It's the sweet spot — long enough to think carefully, short enough that games actually progress.
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2
Run two or three games at first.
Don't sign up for ten games at once until you know how it feels. Two or three running in parallel is plenty for your first month.
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3
Treat every move like it's the only move.
If you're going to spend three days, spend it. Look at the candidate moves, calculate forcing lines, check for tactics. The whole point is the depth.
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4
Use conditional moves in forced lines.
When you can already see two or three moves of a forcing sequence, set them as conditional moves. The game will play itself through the obvious part and bring the position back to you when there's a real choice.
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5
Set vacation before you travel.
Heading away for a week? Turn on vacation mode. Every game you have pauses at once. Come back, turn it off, the games resume from exactly where they were.
Preguntas frecuentes
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¿Qué es el ajedrez por correspondencia?
El ajedrez por correspondencia es un formato en el que cada jugador tiene días — no minutos — para hacer cada movimiento. Es la misma idea que otras plataformas llaman "ajedrez diario". Los jugadores lo usan para pensar profundamente sobre las posiciones, jugar a través de zonas horarias y adaptar el ajedrez al resto de sus vidas. ChessHere es compatible con controles de tiempo desde un día hasta catorce días por movimiento.
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¿Cuánto tiempo dura una partida de ajedrez por correspondencia?
Una partida típica dura de dos a cuatro semanas con tres días por jugada. Controles de tiempo más rápidos (un día por jugada) pueden terminar en una semana, y los más lentos (cinco o siete días) pueden durar un mes o más. La mayoría de los jugadores hacen varias jugadas al día en la práctica, por lo que las partidas a menudo se completan mucho antes de que el control de tiempo los obligue.
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¿Puedo jugar muchas partidas por correspondencia a la vez?
Sí, la mayoría de los jugadores serios de ajedrez por correspondencia juegan entre cinco y veinte partidas a la vez. El panel de Mis Partidas ordena las partidas activas por turno, para que siempre veas primero los tableros que esperan tu jugada. No hay límite por cuenta en el número de partidas por correspondencia simultáneas en el nivel gratuito.
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¿Qué son las jugadas condicionales?
Las jugadas condicionales te permiten programar respuestas a las posibles próximas jugadas de tu oponente, y ChessHere las ejecuta automáticamente. Establece "si juegan X, yo juego Y" desde el tablero de juego y la jugada se realiza en el momento en que tu oponente juega el desencadenante. Esto es particularmente útil en líneas de apertura profundas donde las siguientes varias jugadas son forzadas; no tienes que estar en línea para jugarlas.
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¿Qué es el modo vacaciones?
El modo vacaciones pausa el reloj en cada partida por correspondencia que estés jugando, con un solo interruptor. Úsalo para viajes, enfermedad o cualquier período en el que no puedas mover. El nivel gratuito incluye un presupuesto anual de vacaciones suficiente para viajes normales; el uso se rastrea por cuenta para que no pueda ser explotado para estancar partidas indefinidamente.
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¿Qué sucede si me quedo sin tiempo en una jugada?
Si tu reloj de tiempo por jugada llega a cero, pierdes la partida por tiempo. El oponente no tiene que reclamarlo manualmente; ChessHere termina la partida automáticamente. El modo vacaciones pausa tu reloj si lo activas antes de la fecha límite. Los tiempos agotados repetidos en muchas partidas pueden marcar tu cuenta para el sistema de emparejamiento automático, lo que te desprioriza de nuevos emparejamientos por correspondencia.
Try correspondence chess.
Free account, ten seconds to set up. Start a game at three days per move and see why so many players never go back to anything else.