Correspondence chess server
Encyclopedia
A correspondence chess server is arguably the most convenient form of correspondence chess
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...

. Instead of players directly email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

ing moves to each other, the game is played on a clickable board on a web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

 page, which keeps track of all the moves. The web server
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....

 emails each player when it is his or her turn. This helps ensure email privacy, and avoids the potential pitfalls of using email clients, such as viruses
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...

. It also eliminates the need for players to maintain their own chessboards.

Most correspondence servers have move validation and check for stalemate
Stalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....

 and checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

. This eliminates the sending of illegal moves, which would then have to be corrected.

One of the drawbacks of a correspondence server is downtime. If the server is unavailable for any reason, the games it is serving cannot be played.

There are several good and reliable correspondence chess servers. These all have play all tournaments, knockout tournaments, rest of world matches, annotated games facility, and other social facilities and features.
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