About Us

Do you dislike having to travel to chess tournaments, then pay high hotel bills and entry fees for just a few games? Would you like more than the average 2 or 3 minutes for a move, so that you could really find the best move?

Correspondence chess offers you the opportunity to play chess in the comfort of your own home, at a time of your choosing, with very little expense and no chess clock staring you in the face. You can study the openings, middle games and endings in more detail, using books and data bases if you like, and improve your over-the-board skills as well.

Our non-profit organization has been conducting postal chess tournaments since 1897, as CCLA since 1909. We are a democratic organization operating under a member-approved Constitution and ByLaws, with leadership provided by member-elected Officers and Directors, all of whom have limited terms of office. Thus CCLA guarantees leadership continuity, avoiding the chaos that wipes-out small orgaizations when their owners become unwilling or unable to continue.

We offer a large selection of server and postal chess tournaments, and publish the award-winning, quarterly Chess Correspondent magazine. In fact, the Chess Correspondent has won the prestigious Chess Journalists of America award for best postal chess magazine a record six times!

CCLA is the original U.S. affiliate of ICCF, the world-wide governing body of correspondence chess. Today, CCLA aims to provide American chess players with competitive chess play using all venues. Our mission is to promote friendly chess play by correspondence for all rating classes. Under our Met League program, CCLA members may also organize teams from club or community affiliation and challenge other teams to matches played on the ICCF webserver.

CCLA organizes "friendly matches" with teams from other countries; games are unrated and strictly for fun and experience with international play. We also provide access to official international competition, including a qualifying path toward ICCF's world correspondence chess championship.

CCLA traditionally has a low drop-out rate so you are able to play most if not all of your games to completion. We cordially invite you to join us and enjoy the world of correspondence chess the CCLA way!

•   Serverchess.com is mobile friendly! Play server games on your desktop pc, tablet, iPad or iPhone.

•   Convenient and easy to use. No complicated software to download, install or update. Everything happens in your own browser or handheld device.

•   Log on the server, select My Games, select a specific game and make your next move in the gui (graphical user interface.) It's that easy!

•   The server automatically notifies players by email when a new section starts and / or an opponent has played a new move, eliminating the need to log on and off the server, looking for opponents' latest moves. This email message contains a direct link to the game so you can bypass the log on process.

•   100% free access - all content - CCLA's web site, "Chess on the Server" blog and the CCLA Facebook page. No annoying log ons required. We never demand a credit card number.

•   No intrusive pop-ups, banner ads, screen highjacks or app store. CCLA doesn't sell merchandise or accept commercial advertising. No cookies, tracking codes or web bugs (see our privacy statement.)

•   We offer traditional postal chess (postal players may exchange moves via email (when both players agree to do so) as well as server chess.

•   Players must use their real names -
no anonymous opponents or fake user names. No chess engines allowed in our Traditional Chess tournaments (engines may be used in Advanced Chess events.)

•   Membership includes your choice of a quarterly printed magazine or pdf version sent via email attachment.

•   Contact us using your own email program. No irritating Captchas, online forms or log-ins required.

•   Updated chess ratings, results and Grand Prix standings are published monthly on our website, quarterly in Chess Correspondent magazine.

•   Don't have a formal chess rating? No problem! If you don't have a FIDE, ICCF, USCF or other traditional numeric rating, just pick your class (A,B,C,D or E) and CCLA will assign your initial rating so you can play right away! Please check out rating classes on our Rating System Explained page.

Join CCLA today! Please visit our membership page for more information.