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.
-
1
Start with three days per move.
It's the sweet spot — long enough to think carefully, short enough that games actually progress.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
よくある質問
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通信チェスとは何ですか？
通信チェスは、各プレイヤーが各指し手に分ではなく日数が与えられる形式です。これは他のプラットフォームで「デイリーチェス」と呼ばれるものと同じ考え方です。プレイヤーは局面について深く考えたり、タイムゾーンを越えてプレイしたり、日常生活に合わせてチェスを楽しんだりするために利用します。ChessHereは1日あたり1日から14日までの持ち時間に対応しています。
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通信チェスの対局はどのくらいかかりますか？
一般的な対局は、1手あたり3日で2〜4週間かかります。より速い持ち時間（1手あたり1日）では1週間で終了することもあり、より遅い持ち時間（5日または7日）では1ヶ月以上かかることもあります。実際にはほとんどのプレイヤーが1日に数回指し手を進めるため、対局は持ち時間切れになるよりもかなり早く完了することがよくあります。
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複数の通信チェス対局を同時にプレイできますか？
はい — ほとんどの本格的な通信チェスプレイヤーは、同時に5〜20局を進行しています。「マイ対局」ダッシュボードでは、アクティブな対局が誰の番であるかによってソートされるため、常に自分の指し手を待っている盤面が最初に表示されます。無料プランでは、同時進行の通信チェス対局数にアカウントごとの制限はありません。
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条件付き指し手とは何ですか？
条件付き指し手を使用すると、相手の次の可能性のある指し手に対する返答をキューに入れておくことができ、ChessHereがそれらを自動的にプレイします。対局盤面から「相手がXを指したら、私はYを指す」と設定すると、相手がトリガーとなる指し手を指した瞬間にその指し手が実行されます。これは、次のいくつかの指し手が強制される深いオープニングラインで特に便利です — それらをプレイするためにオンラインである必要はありません。
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休暇モードとは何ですか？
休暇モードは、単一のスイッチで、プレイ中のすべての通信チェス対局の時計を一時停止します。旅行、病気、または指し手を進められない期間に利用してください。無料プランには、通常の旅行に十分な年間休暇予算が含まれています。利用状況はアカウントごとに追跡されるため、対局を無期限に引き延ばすために悪用することはできません。
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1手の持ち時間がなくなったらどうなりますか？
1手あたりの時計がゼロになった場合、時間切れで対局に負けます。相手が手動で主張する必要はなく、ChessHereが自動的に対局を終了します。期限前に休暇モードをオンにすると、時計が一時停止します。多くの対局で繰り返し時間切れになると、自動マッチングシステムでアカウントにフラグが立てられ、新しい通信チェスのペアリングで優先順位が下がることがあります。
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.