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.

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.

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. 1

    Start with three days per move.

    It's the sweet spot — long enough to think carefully, short enough that games actually progress.

  2. 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. 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. 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.

  5. 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.

Sık sorulan sorular

  • Yazışmalı satranç nedir?

    Yazışmalı satranç, her oyuncunun her hamle için dakikalar değil, günler süresi olduğu bir formattır. Diğer platformların "günlük satranç" dediği fikirle aynıdır. Oyuncular bunu konumlar hakkında derinlemesine düşünmek, farklı zaman dilimlerinde oynamak ve satrancı hayatlarının geri kalanına sığdırmak için kullanır. ChessHere, hamle başına bir günden on dört güne kadar zaman kontrollerini destekler.

  • Bir yazışmalı satranç oyunu ne kadar sürer?

    Tipik bir oyun, hamle başına üç gün ile iki ila dört hafta sürer. Daha hızlı zaman kontrolleri (hamle başına bir gün) bir haftada bitebilir ve daha yavaş olanlar (beş veya yedi gün) bir ay veya daha uzun sürebilir. Çoğu oyuncu pratikte günde birkaç kez hamle yapar, bu nedenle oyunlar genellikle zaman kontrolünün onları zorlayacağından çok daha önce tamamlanır.

  • Aynı anda birçok yazışmalı satranç oyunu oynayabilir miyim?

    Evet — çoğu ciddi yazışmalı satranç oyuncusu aynı anda beş ila yirmi oyun oynar. Oyunlarım panosu, aktif oyunları kimin sırası olduğuna göre sıralar, böylece her zaman sizin hamlenizi bekleyen tahtaları ilk görürsünüz. Ücretsiz katmanda eşzamanlı yazışmalı satranç oyunları için hesap başına bir sınır yoktur.

  • Koşullu hamleler nelerdir?

    Koşullu hamleler, rakibinizin olası sonraki hamlelerine yanıtları sıraya koymanızı sağlar ve ChessHere bunları otomatik olarak oynar. Oyun tahtasından "eğer X oynarlarsa, ben Y oynarım" ayarını yapın ve rakibiniz tetikleyiciyi oynadığı anda hamle gerçekleşir. Bu, sonraki birkaç hamlenin zorunlu olduğu derin açılış hatlarında özellikle kullanışlıdır — bunları oynamak için çevrimiçi olmanız gerekmez.

  • Tatil modu nedir?

    Tatil modu, oynadığınız her yazışmalı satranç oyunundaki saati tek bir anahtarla duraklatır. Seyahat, hastalık veya hamle yapamayacağınız herhangi bir dönem için kullanın. Ücretsiz katman, normal seyahat için yeterli yıllık bir tatil bütçesi içerir; kullanım hesap başına takip edilir, böylece oyunları süresiz olarak durdurmak için kötüye kullanılamaz.

  • Bir hamlede sürem biterse ne olur?

    Hamle başına süreniz sıfıra ulaşırsa, oyunu zamanla kaybedersiniz. Rakibin bunu manuel olarak talep etmesi gerekmez — ChessHere oyunu otomatik olarak sonlandırır. Tatil modu, son teslim tarihinden önce açarsanız saatinizi duraklatır. Birçok oyunda tekrarlanan zaman aşımları, hesabınızı otomatik eşleştirme sistemi için işaretleyebilir, bu da sizi yeni yazışmalı satranç eşleştirmelerinden önceliksiz hale getirir.

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.