Guide And rules to Team Matches: Please read before joining our Team Matches.

Our Team Matches are played in style of chess known as correspondence chess. Of course many of you will be familiar with correspondence chess. But as a quick explanation for those who are new to it:

Correspondence chess is a much slower format of chess. Instead of being played over a few hours or minutes like over the board or live online chess. The bonus is that you can have more than one game running at anytime, you can play as many or as little games at one time as you like to suit your available free time. Correspondence chess can take a very very long time to complete 1 game, a couple of weeks or even months. The standard is each player has 3 days to make each move, however this can be a lot less or a lot more. If you run out of time for your move you forfeit the game. On this site, those with membership, are permitted to to take vacation time if they are unavailable to come online. The rules regarding the game itself are that players can have access to games databases and an analysis board to aid them in deciding each move, but NO chess engine, or program or advice from other players. These are considered cheating. The benefit of this style of play is it encourages learning about and deeper analysis of how we play, which can help improve the strength of play over time.

Before entering one of our team matches please allow for enough time to complete the game. Although the main reason we do this is for fun. Some of our matches are part of tournaments and leagues and considered somewhat important and we try our best to win. If you timeout and therefor forfeit your game, at the least, it lets down the rest of the team who is trying hard to win, and at most could seen is somewhat inconsiderate. It's the equivalent of a football player leaving the pitch in the middle of a match.

What we will do if you timeout:

Before any ban comes into play you will be given 1 week to let us know if there was a important reason why you needed to time out. We will consider it. We understand that sometimes our personal lives have emergencies, or some other important incidents that prevent us from coming online. If we hear nothing from you thereafter the following ban will then be applied.

1^st timeout = Ban from the next team match.

2^nd timeout = Ban for 2 weeks from entering team matches.

3^rd timeout = Ban for 1 month from entering team matches.

Banning is something we don't enjoy doing, we do so very reluctantly. Unfortunetly we are having to many timeouts in our matches recently and this is the only way we can address it.

Other things to consider when you join team matches:

Always be respectful to your opponent, and play in good spirits; remember your behavior reflects on the rest of the team.

To reiterate, we do try to win but it is important to play for fun. Most of us will never become top professionals, so what can we take from chess if not our own enjoyment.

Tactics Tent

Super Admins