I have – so far – written very little about my correspondence chess.

I started playing correspondence chess (CC) when Somerset was looking for players for the national county championships. That was around 2010 and I thought it was a good idea to improve my opening knowledge whilst still playing regular over the board (otb) chess.

So, I “signed up” and the next thing I knew I was getting an email with the name of my opponent. Before that I’ve had to sign up for ICCF and created an account.

The majority of the games are nowadays played on the ICCF server – instead of sending out post cards with your move on.

The first few games didn’t go according to plan. I think I lost most of them, but I stuck with it.

I started playing used the computer and various chess programs a little bit more. I started off with using Fritz and at the time I also had a membership with chessbase (matter of fact I still have).

I shifted my focus from Fritz to Komodo and Rybka and I am pretty sure I still have a copy of it somewhere. But over time it was apparent that stockfish was the chess program to beat. And what was even better is the fact is completely free.

The next issue was my computer. In 2012 I was using a Sony Vaio which are discontinued these days. I have never owned a desktop – only a laptop therefore it made sense to have a look at some strong laptops these days.

I am currently using a Dell G15 Ryzen7 (5000 series) Laptop with a 2 TB hard drive and a pretty good graphics card which made this little bad boy relatively expensive.

Since combining a stronger laptop with a stronger chess program my results have been steadily progressing in the right direction and my first ICCF rating was in 2014 – 2116.

Since then, the trajectory is mainly gone upwards with a few dibs but overall, it has gone well.

The rating is also reflected in the titles you can achieve. Like in over the board chess a Grandmaster (GM) is still the highest title. The next title is a Senior International Master (SIM) which does only exist in Correspondence Chess (CC). Then International Master (IM) followed by Correspondence Chess Master (CCM) and Correspondence Chess Expert (CCE).

All of those titles (see above) are tied to tournament performances and getting titles these days are no easy thing to do. Due to the computer work most games end in a draw – at least at the highest level.

To show you what I mean have a look at the next picture: I came joint first as I was one of four players who won A game:

My winning game against GM Pugh was strange as I could not find the obvious mistake as the game just went downhill for him just after the opening. And I think this is the key to CC – the opening plays a huge factor.

So, what’s next for me in CC? I probably need to aim for the SIM title but that also would mean I probably – for the first time in my life – will need to invest some money into a decent desktop who can handle the chess program and the complex calculations. Ideally a Ryzen9 or an Intel i9.

That also means to move our son into the second bedroom which needs to be refurbished before we would do that. Then his current bedroom would be our office/video game room/people staying over room which also would need to be refurbished as well. If this isn’t hard enough – convincing my wife will be impossible.

Money, money, money – must be funny – in a rich man’s world!!!!!!