Correspondence Chess, Still Alive in 2026
While bullet and hyperbullet dominate online chess attention, US Chess and the International Correspondence Chess Federation are running the 2026 Golden Knights, its 84th annual edition, and the 2026 Electronic Knights, its 23rd, both active right now. Correspondence chess, where each move can take days rather than seconds, is a format most players assume died with postal mail. It did not.
Two tournaments, two eras of the same idea
The Golden Knights, now in its 84th year, is still played by actual postal mail, envelopes and stamps, for players who prefer the format's original form. The Electronic Knights, its 23rd edition, runs the identical concept on the ICCF webserver, days per move rather than seconds, without needing a physical postal service. Michael Buss of Indianapolis recently won his sixth Golden Knights title, the kind of sustained, multi-decade dominance a slower format makes possible in a way a fast one rarely does.
What days-per-move actually changes
With days rather than seconds to think, correspondence players routinely analyse lines to a depth no over-the-board or online game could match, full home analysis, engine-assisted preparation in categories that permit it, and genuinely exhaustive calculation of critical branches. It is a fundamentally different intellectual exercise from any time control most players have ever experienced, closer to postal-era correspondence chess of a century ago than to anything on Chess.com's server today.
The prize structure tells you it is a hobby, not a business
The Electronic Knights carries an $800 first prize and a $35 entry fee; the Golden Knights splits a $2,300 pool based on 200 entries across the top 10 places. These are hobbyist stakes, not professional ones, and that is precisely the point: correspondence chess has quietly persisted for over 80 years without needing sponsorship, streaming rights, or a private equity investor to justify its continued existence.
Why it is worth knowing this still exists
Every format discussed elsewhere in chess news this year, bullet, hyperbullet, rapid, classical, is defined by speed in one direction or another. Correspondence chess is the format defined by the total absence of a clock pressure at all, and its persistence, 84 years running for the Golden Knights alone, is a quiet rebuttal to the idea that chess only survives by getting faster and more spectator-friendly.