International Correspondence Chess Federation
correspondence chess governing body
The International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) is an international correspondence chess organization. It was founded on 26 March 1951 as a new appearance of the International Correspondence Chess Association (ICCA), which was founded in 1945, as successor of the Internationaler Fernschachbund (IFSB), founded on 2 December 1928.
The current president is Éric Ruch, while the first president was Jean-Louis Ormond.
History
Before ICCF
Some sources say that correspondence chess was already played in the 12th century. Most chess historians doubt whether this is true. In the 19th century chess clubs and magazines started to organize more regular tournaments, national as well as international tournaments. Finally in 1928 the first international league (Internationaler Fernschachbund) was founded. Alexander Alekhine, Paul Keres and Max Euwe were well-known enthusiastic correspondence chess players during some periods of their chess careers.
ICSB
On 15 August 1928, the ICSB (Internationaler Correspondensschachbund/International Correspondence Chess Federation) was created under the leadership of Erich Otto Freienhagen (Berlin), which had existed in a loose form since November 1927. Other members of the management were J.Keemink (Netherlands), K.Laue, H. von Massow, H.Schild (Germany) and C.Olsen (Norway).
The public source identifies “International Correspondence Chess Federation” as correspondence chess governing body. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around International, Correspondence and Chess.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1355085. VIAF identifies the subject as 134549646. The Library of Congress control number is nr93015784. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1945, 1928 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “International Correspondence Chess Federation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.