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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
20 January 2013
We are again in the process of weeding out dead links. Can readers please warn us of any sites they find no longer exist? We have now added a section with some newly recommended sites of various kinds to this page.
Note that the old ICCF website at www.iccf.com has been discontinued, and all ICCF information including the ICCF online games archive is now hosted at the ICCF webserver where its games are played.
For a larger set of chess links, try New In Chess which is linked below in the Literature and Miscellaneous section.
Please go to our new Chess History links page for links to other websites relating to chess history.
Our national CC websites page and Irish links are separate from the links below.
Correspondence Chess Servers |
Major CC Organisations |
Other email chess clubs |
Other CC websites |
Newly recommended |
Chess literature |
Chess openings |
Other Favourites |
Miscellaneous Sites |
If you think your site deserves to be linked here, email us with your details. Note that we often do not include site logos (which make the page bigger) and we generally only give links where a site is of high quality or of special interest to chess historians or correspondence players.
Note to webmasters who may consider requesting a link: We only link to sites about chess and board games. If you are a poker or other gambling site, don't bother asking. Links on this page are reviewed periodically and a link to any site may be removed if the content appears to be out of date or unsuitable for our readers, many of whom are quite young.
Major Correspondence Chess Organisations
International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF)
Recognised by FIDE as the world governing body for correspondence chess: ICCF makes rules, awards titles and runs the most comprehensive and authoritative CC rating list. ICCF was founded in 1951 and the legal successor to previous international bodies ICCA and IFSB (pre-WW2 European body).
The ICCF European zone also has its own good website.
ICCF is a true federation of national organisations. It published a book about the first 50 years of its activities, ICCF Gold.
Normally you have to pay entry fees to enter ICCF events. There are now just two major email CC organisations: IECC and DESC (see below) since IECG wound up its activities at the end of 2010.
International Email Chess Club (IECC)
IECC does not run championships or award bogus titles. It does have a wide range of other events including friendly matches. Its most controversial feature is its attempt to ban the use of computer analysis - so if you like to avoid computer opponents, you have a better chance with IECC. A major article on IECC appeared in Chess Mail 7/2002.
International Email Chess Group (IECG) - now closed.
IECG began around 1994 and was reconstituted at the end of 1996. It was for a long time the main rival to ICCF but ceased its activities at the end of 2010, although its website remains for the time being as an historic archive. Active play has been trabsferred to the Lechenicher SchachServer (LSS): see below. IECG was rather controversial because it awarded titles and ran an event which it calls an email "world championship" but eventually it had to recognise that server play has superseded email chess.
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These are not in any particular order but we have played on the first five.
The ICCF web server is very well established.
This is a fully-featured CC server where numerous serious correspondence chess tournaments have now been played or begun. We strongly recommend any remaining email and postal players to switch to this mode of play. Chess Mail sponsored the inaugural event with 91 players in 13 sections.
The above is not a complete list of servers where CC may be played; there are so many of them now.
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Other email and postal chess clubs
Apart from the above and the national CC organisations (separate links page), there are a several clubs within the UK and USA that are separately run but affiliated to the national bodies.
| In the UK: | BFCC | BCCA | Natcor (NCCC) | Social CCA |
The BFCC is the umbrella group representing English corresponence chess internationally. The British Correspondence Chess Association, which celebrated its centenary in 2006, the National club (Natcor for short, founded in the 1930s) and the Social CCA (founded during World War II) are the main affiliates to BFCC.
The British Correspondence Chess Society (BCCS), no longer exists.
| In the USA: | CCLA | ASPCC | APCT |
There are now very few email CC clubs:
Apparently, 'For Chess Lovers', LIAPE, Sinergia, SIR and Eclipse no longer exist AND SEMI is no longer organising tournaments. Webserver CC seems to be killing off these clubs.
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So far as I can tell there is no longer anything new happening at correspondencechess.com, which was established by John Knudsen and taken over later by Grayling V. Hill. Its home page has a link to the TCCMB (correspondence chess message board) which, so far as I can tell, now has only archived posts at Bravenet. So the once popular TCCMB is still online but appears extinct through lack of support.
It seems that the old CC scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s is effectively dead now as the network of enthusiasts who helped build the email game at that period have drifted away from chess, or at least from CC.
There are still some archived or active sections of CC-COM:
plus the Canadian CCA and APCT sites, Chess Journalists of America site etc. Something new can be found here almost every day.
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Some individual correspondence players have their own websites, but far fewer than of old. In alphabetical order:
Uwe Bekemann (Germany)
Viking Chess by Karsten Fyhn: interesting site about Scandinavian chess, written in English by a Dane.
Jaap van der Kooij (The Netherlands)
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Nalimov 6-man endgame tablebase at Knowledge4IT
Nalimov 6-man endgame tablebase at ChessOK
Nalimov endgame tablebase at Lokasoft (best for 5-man endings)
Chess photographs from the Cleveland Public Library, Ohio
Steve Giddins's chess blog (Former editor of BCM; very anti-the English Chess Federation's current management, and one of the last defenders of GM Ray Keene.)
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The principal non-CC links of interest to us are:
The Chess Cafe (home of The Kibitzer). Founded by Hanon W. Russell about 16/17 years ago. Proprietor: Mark Donlan.
Tim Harding's monthly Kibitzer column resides at The Chess Cafe, a very large online magazine website, which is particularly of value to people with an interest in chess history and curiosities, with many columns by other writers. There is also a bulletin board, weekly book reviews of a high standard and an online shop.
Ken Whyld Association (The KWA is an international association of people interested in chess literature and chess history. Tim Harding gave a lecture at its annual meeting in Amsterdam in September 2005 and will be speaking again at its Norwich meeting on 15 April 2012.)
FIDE (World Chess Federation, governing body for OTB play). Ratings, rules and more.
Chess History Editor: Richard Forster. This site now includes Edward Winter's Chess Notes which has moved from The Chess Cafe.
Chess Archaeology Editor: Richard Pope. An older chess history site which recently sprang into new life, posting page images from many 19th century American chess columns.
ChessLab
A popular high-tech site, featuring a database of two million interactive games you can play through with the Chess Tutor java applet. Find games, download PGN, play through online, analyse online with their engine.
The enpassant.dk site is where you can still find the PGN viewer program Palview4 which I used extensively in the past to present games on my CDs and formerly on this website.
Chess Variants for people who like that sort of thing.
GM Alexander Baburin's daily Chess Today and website, GM Square.
Tim Krabbé's Chess Curiosities - a treasure trove of unusual chess facts and strange games.
The Week In Chess (TWIC) Editor: Mark Crowther; no longer sponsored by London Chess Centre, and apparently no longer posting weekly game downloads.
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Books, magazines and publishers
McFarland Publishing
McFarland are indisputably the leading producers of quality chess history books. They published Tim Harding's history of British and Irish correspondence chess in 2011 and a new book from him is in the pipeline for 2012.
New In Chess
The world's top chess magazine: eight printed issues per year. Good site for links and now with an online database of 800,000 games.
British Chess Magazine *** NEW URL ***
The world's oldest chess magazine (founded 1881).
Moravian Chess
Dr Vlastimil Fiala's reprint house for chess books and periodicals from the 19th and early 20th century. They also publish (at erratic intervals) the 'Quarterly for Chess History'.
Kingpin
Scurrilous, funny, sometimes serious, sometimes libellous. Only comes out about 3 times a year when editor Jon Manley is in the mood. But not updated since 2007, I think.
Europe Echecs The principal chess magazine in French.
Everyman Chess Prolific British chess book publisher.
Looking for rare chess books?
Here are four dealers you can contact:
Tony Peterson, England (A KWA member - recommended)
Raimo Lindroos, T:MI Shakeril, Finland, Email: raimo.lindroos@pp.kolumbus.fi
(Also good for literature on oriental games)
Manfred Mädler, Dresden, Germany. Email: Schachhaus.Maedler@t-online.de
(A long-established German dealer and CC master)
Schachbücher Urs Frischherz, Switzerland, Email: urs.frischherz@bluewin.ch
(Good site for bibliographical information on chess books)
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Commercial, Software & Miscellaneous
Some other sites we consider worth visiting from time to time:
For game collectors: Britbase is a site we highly recommend for good free downloads of archived British OTB events, plus many links to other sites where more games may be found. This is run by John Saunders (formerly editor of BCM) who now edits Chess magazine. It links to similar sites in other countries.
Australian Chess Enterprises (agent for Chess Mail products Down Under)
Useful Chess - play or learn
DirectoryGame.com - an online directory of game sites
Regency Chess Company (Bath): a chess shop in south-west England
A searchable online chess encyclopaedia: La Mecca.
Chess Quotes is a fairly new site.
If you want to download games by ftp for your database, first get the index from the tremendous University of Pittsburgh pitt.edu site, which has zillions of games and chess software utilities to download in any format you might need. The gamefiles are not really recommended as they include a tremendous amount of incorrect data and garbage,
Bruno Berenguer's Chess Problem of the Day has a new URL.
Bobby Fischer page by Chuck Ayoub (unofficial, naturally).
Software
ChessBase GmbH. The world's biggest chess software company hardly need any introduction, do they?
For chess fonts, we use the Alpine Electronics series created by the late Steve Smith, the true professional choice for chess publishers but perhaps expensive for others. They are now available again for online purchase.
For advice about diagrams, fonts and chess publishing tips, try the page run by Eric Bentzen for Nørresundby Chess Club's En Passant pages (Denmark). Part of the highly recommended Palamede site (listed under Favourites)
Chess Puzzles: chess tutorial software and training simulators for beginners and tournament chess players.
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So you want to play some strange openings?
Diemer-Duhm Gambit: Jyrki Heikkinen
Sokolsky Opening, 1 b4: Marek Trokenheim.
Alternative Orang-Utan opening site (editor Benoit St.-Jean).
Urusov Gambit and related lines (Michael Goeller).
ChessPublishing.com
If you want to play proper openings and are willing to pay good money... English-run subscription venture, updated monthly and aimed primarily at the keen amateur and improving player. It's a sort of opening theory encyclopaedia/magazine divided into twelve sections edited by different experts (mostly GMs). You can subscribe to just the openings you want, or the lot. Updated monthly with PDF booklets and downloadable games.
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