Choosing an Online Chess Site: Correspondence Chess

October 25, 2010
Tags: Learning Chess Articles

Written by guest author Jason Repa for Wholesale Chess

A continuation of Jason’s reviews of online chess sites. Be sure to check out Jason’s review of ICC and Yahoo Chess and PlayChess.com review

In the days before the public internet, correspondence chess referred to a game which involved a person setting up a position on a chess board, thinking about that position for sometimes days, or even weeks, then writing down their move(s) on a piece of paper, putting that piece of paper into a stamped envelope, and mailing it off to their opponent, who might be on a different continent. Not only did the moves sometimes take a long time to make, but on top of this there was the time it took to mail the letter. In an era of modern technology, with instant emails, voice, and video communication from any two places on the planet, this might seem like a ridiculous waste of time and money (spent on postage), but it did offer a unique chess experience which can no longer be replicated.

It was a form of the game in which two players had the opportunity to play to the best of their ability and without any restrictions on time or travel obligations. There was a profound enjoyment of competition between two human minds. The worst you had to think about was that your opponent might be collaborating with someone else, although this was no guarantee that the quality of the move would be improved this way. And if your opponent was of a high skill level, it would be rather difficult for him to obtain a worthwhile collaborative partner in the first place. Back then, It even took time and sometimes great effort just to get the game scores from high level chess events to see what moves the masters were making.

Today, everything has changed. We have instant and cheap access to 5 million game databases loaded with all of the games of the top players, Super-Grandmaster level analysis proffered by modern off-the-shelf chess-playing programs, and even chess tablebases that give a categorical evaluation when the position is reduced down to a prescribed number of pieces. Although, ostensibly, technology should have made correspondence chess more attractive than ever, as we now have an instant and free way to send the moves to each other, combined with a multitude of servers that offer graphical interfaces that handle all the tedium, such as having to write down the moves, the reality of the matter is oftentimes much more vapid.

Some sites claim to have “anti-cheating” methods where they apparently compare the moves of the player being interrogated to that of what the popular chess engines would prefer, but this does nothing to combat those who only consult their chess software on an intermittent basis, or only against certain opponents, such as those they think might be ‘cheating’ against them. Additionally, it is difficult to make such a judgment call with stronger players whom, at correspondence time controls, may come up with many ‘engine-quality’ moves naturally. An intelligent person might only use the engine to avoid blunders, otherwise playing all of his own moves, etc., to avoid such detection.

At the end of the day, the element of genuine competition in this form of the game has been compromised. Having said that, I still believe that even modern correspondence chess can offer many rewards. There is the social aspect of the game and the opportunity to meet people from around the world, who might not have been as quick to strike up an online conversation at (real-time) time controls, where every second on the clock counts. There is also the opportunity to play virtually as many concurrent games as you desire, to avoid having nothing to do while waiting for a particular opponent to make a move. Additionally, some people view this type of chess as a form of group study that provides them with the opportunity to gain deep insight into certain openings and positions, which can be of assistance to them in their preparation for their OTB tournament chess.

My personal pick for Correspondence Chess is ficgs.com
This is a free server with a pleasant graphical interface that is comparatively light on system resources. There are no java clients or flash animations to boggle down older computers and or slow internet speeds. All resources are allowed for all tournaments, with the exception of a special no-engines tournament in which the games are unrated. There is nothing to download and after registering at the site all that is required to do is to click on the “waiting list” for the tournament you are interested in participating in. They have other games in addition to chess, such as turn-based GO, and even a turn-based version of heads up poker. Another option for those who hate the prospect of their opponents’ potentially consulting computers is a game that looks like a possible interpretation of Capablanca’s vision of the new chess with a larger board and more pieces, aptly called ‘Big Chess’. There are only the normal chess pieces we are all used to, just more of them. But with a 16×16 board, you can be sure that all opening, middle game, and endgame theory, from regular chess, has gone out the window. Since this is an invention of the ficgs webmaster himself, it is doubtful that any ‘Big Chess’ programs are kicking around the internet just yet.

Jason Repa is a CFC rated national chess expert and part-time chess coach from Winnipeg, Canada. He has been a tournament chess player since 1995 and has been teaching chess since 2002. He can be reached at jasonrepa @ hotmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Wholesale Chess. We welcome open discussion on all aspects of chess on the Wholesale Chess Blog. If you would like to be a guest author on our blog, please contact us at marketing@wholesalechess.com.