Written by IM Christer Sundqvist, ICCF GM (pending), ICCF rating 2537, and Top-100 Correspondence Player
The Man in the Pre-Engine Era
It is 1985. I sit at my desk, a cup of coffee getting cold next to me. Some of my favorite chess opening books are scattered across the mahogany surface, as is a cute chess board showing my current position in the game and a well-worn notebook filled with my opponent's games over the previous five years.
I analyze his chess moves like a detective investigating a serial offender. He always castles king-side on move eight, even when theory suggests otherwise. That is how he plays. He despises isolated queen's pawns and will trade down to avoid them at all costs. In the King's Indian, he crumbles in slow maneuvering positions; he requires open lines and tactical chaos to be comfortable.
Tonight, I will choose my opening based on him, rather than what is objectively "best." I'm going to play a slightly inferior line. A line that a computer from that time would reject because I know it will force him into a structure he despises. I'm not going to play the board. I'm playing with his psychology. I'm playing on his fears, biases, pet positions, and irrational attachment to familiar patterns. Maybe he has an irrational hatred for the Dragon Sicilian.
After several weeks of correspondence, he finally cracks on move 35. I win. I proudly annotate the game. "On move 16, my opponent went off the main line. Why? Because he is a cautious player who is worried about complications on the king-side. "I used that fear to my advantage."
That game conveyed a narrative. It was full of drama. It carried a soul.
The Man in the Engine-Era
Fast forward to 2026. I'm now a top-100 ICCF player, with a rating of 2537 and a GM title pending. My tools have changed. My opponents have changed. And the game that I loved has changed. Irrevocably. Welcome to correspondence chess today.
What do I see when I open the database of my opponents' games today? A ghost.
I can't study his "style" because he no longer has one. Every one of his games over the last decade has followed the same sterile pattern:
Moves 1-15 are perfect book moves made by the chess engine, regardless of opening.
Moves 15–40: The top three engine lines, chosen with cold, mathematical precision.
Moves 40 and up result in tablebase-perfect endgames.
When I look at his wins, I'm not sure if he's a tactical brute or a positional squeezer. All I see are centipawn losses of less than 0.10 over sixty moves, punctuated by an opponent's unavoidable inaccuracy. His games are identical in method, but the openings differ.
I can't ask, "When does he castle?" because it's determined by the engine's assessment of king safety, not by personal preference.
I can't ask "Is he aggressive?" because if the engine says "+0.3" for a sacrifice, he makes it; if it says "0.00" for a quiet move, he plays quietly. He's a colorless chameleon.
The engine's relentless demand for objectivity has wiped away the human being, including all of his fears, biases, and irrational love for one opening or hatred for another.
The Loss of Narrative
Here is what hurts the most, and I believe many of my fellow correspondence players feel this but have never expressed it aloud:
During the 1980s and 1990s, every correspondence game had a story. You could annotate a game with psychological insights. You could explain why a move was chosen, in addition to its objective evaluation. You could discuss fear, ego, and the grinding patience required to outlast a tenacious opponent in a dead-drawn endgame because you knew he would over-press.
Today, how should I annotate a game?
On move 16, my opponent used the second engine choice. The first was also equivalent. He chose the second option. We drew on move 47.
There is no narrative. There's no drama. The game is no longer a battle of two minds; rather, it is a mutual verification of computer output. I'm not beating my opponent; I'm just waiting for him to make a database error. I'm waiting for him to miss a single Leela suggestion that I spotted. The victory feels hollow, not because I did not work hard (I worked extremely hard), but because I did not defeat him. I beat his hardware setup and time management. Perhaps he had a mouse slip?
The Correspondence Chess Paradox: Where Did ”Style” Go?
Some OTB purists will read this and say, "Then engines ruin your chess style. You've proven our point.
I reject that conclusion, arguing that it is more nuanced.
At the ICCF top-100 level, everyone has the same hardware, databases, and access to Leela, Stockfish, and other massively powerful chess engines. The objective assessment of any position is, for all practical purposes, a solved constant between you and your opponent.
So, where is "style" now?
It has been relocated and not destroyed. In the modern correspondence era, style is no longer in flux. It is in the workflow and psychological profile of your opponent. How do you decide between three equally engine-approved moves? You select the one that makes this particular opponent the most uncomfortable. You make the move that introduces a hidden trap twenty-five moves down the line, which the engine detects but your opponent may overlook in his own analysis.
Do you rely on Leela's wild, long-term positional sacrifices, or do you prefer Stockfish's brute-force tactical clarity? Your new signature is determined by your engine philosophy!
How much risk are you willing to take in a drawn endgame to force a win, knowing that it could cost you the game if your opponent discovers the only defensive resource at depth forty?
Today, your style is defined by how far you are willing to deviate from the norm. Do you take a slightly inferior line (say, -0.15) that results in a position with only one defensive move for your opponent over the next 10 moves? That's your signature: the "human trap" disguised as engine objectivity.
The Deepest Wound: You Are Not Playing the Opponent
But allow me to be brutally honest with you, dear reader. The "relocated style" is a consolation prize. My opinion is that you are no longer playing with the opponent's mind. Today's correspondence chess pits you against an omnipotent database with forty-ply depth. Your opponent is not "letting his moves be dictated by the engine"; he is allowing the engine to filter his moves, but he is still selecting which of the three or four engine-approved lines to walk down.
The human element, the irrational, emotional, and fear-driven decision-making that made correspondence chess a psychological battlefield, has vanished.
When I look at my opponent's game record today, I can't ask, "Is he aggressive or solid?" because the engine has rendered that question irrelevant. If the engine says attack, he does so. If the engine says to defend, he does so. His "style" is as simple as "I follow the evaluation bar."
A Question to My Fellow Correspondence Players
I write this not to lament, but to pose an honest question to those of you who share my rank, era, and frustration.
Do you still see any traces of humanity in your opponents' games?
I'm not talking about opening choices because that's mostly engine-book. I'm referring to things like how quickly they respond. Does a quick response indicate overconfidence? Does a slow response indicate that they are struggling to synthesize conflicting engine outputs?
When there are multiple engine-drawn endgames available, the player must choose one. Does your opponent always go for the R+4 vs R+3 endgame because he knows the defensive technique better than you, revealing his human homework?
Do you notice that certain players always switch to Leela late in the middlegame, while others stick with Stockfish, indicating a philosophical bias toward "beauty" vs. "brutality"?
Or has that been eradicated? Are we at the point where workflow efficiency is the only "style" remaining in the ICCF top-100? Who has the fastest computer, the most recently updated database, and the most aggressive database caching?
Why Do I Still Play?
And now, the question I must ask myself, and the one I pose to you:
Why do I continue to play? What motivates you to continue playing chess?
Is it the intellectual rigour of the analysis itself? The elegance of engine-generated combinations that no human could have imagined? The competitive pursuit of that final GM title as a capstone to my decades-long career.
Or is it a stubborn, romantic refusal to let go of the game I adored, even in its transformed, sterile form?
I don't have an easy response. Perhaps I'm still looking for the 1985 feeling. That moment when I beat a human being rather than a machine. Perhaps I am still hoping against all odds that somewhere in the cold print of an engine evaluation, I will find a trace of my opponent's soul.
Perhaps I am simply addicted to the game and unable to let go.
An Open Letter to the Next Generation
This is addressed to the young correspondence players who have never experienced a world without engines. I am not envious of you. You have access to tools that I could not have imagined in 1985. But you've also been robbed of something valuable. You will never understand the thrill of spending three weeks studying your opponent's games, identifying his psychological weakness, and exploiting it with a move that no computer of that era would have discovered.
You will never know the story. The drama is there. The human soul.
However, I do not pass judgment on you. You play the game you inherited rather than the one you would have chosen. There is also beauty in your mastery of silicon. Just as there was beauty in my mastery of humans.
Maybe the future of correspondence chess isn't about style at all. Perhaps it's about transparency. Perhaps we should stop pretending to be playing a human game and accept who we have become: database managers, engine synthesizers, and ghost psychologists.
The Last Human Move
I'm not sure if I'll ever play a truly "mine" move again, one that stems from intuition, psychology, and a deep understanding of my opponent's fears. But I'll keep playing. Because somewhere, in the silence between engine evaluations, I'm still that man from 1985, sitting at his desk, studying his opponent's games by lamplight, looking for a soul.
And maybe that search is what makes us human.
I invite all correspondence players, both experienced and new, to participate in this discussion. Have you found any traces of humanity in your games? Or have we truly entered the age of machine-dominated chess? Share your thoughts, games, and frustrations. This is a conversation we must have openly and honestly before the last human move is forgotten.
Final Remark
I attempted to strike a balance between nostalgia, frustration, and acceptance. I avoid being purely bitter; I appreciate the beauty of engine-assisted chess while lamenting the loss of the human component. Below, I take a nostalgic look at a correspondence game I used to play in 1985, a relic from a bygone era.
Best wishes,
christer
Sundqvist,Christer - Huttunen,Lauri
Finland 3rd class, corr, 1985
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3
I choose the Sämisch-variation because my opponent has lost some of his games recently. He plays more consistently against the Classical variants.
5...0–0 6.Be3 Nc6
I was expecting ...c5. The move ...Nc6 does not look good, but I had predicted correctly my opponents move!
7.Nge2 a6 8.Qd2 Rb8 9.0–0–0
I deviated from the Encyclopedia of the Chess openings, for a certain reason: I want to quickly attack my opponent on the King side in an aggressive way. 9.0–0–0 was mentioned as a side-line transposing to the moves in the game.
9...b5 10.h4
I was aware of this game and studied it carefully: 10.Bh6 Bxh6 11.Qxh6 e5 12.h4 Nxd4 13.Nxd4 exd4 14.Rxd4 Qe7 15.h5 Be6 16.hxg6 fxg6 17.Kb1 c5 18.Rd2 bxc4 19.Ka1 Rb6 20.Be2 Rfb8 21.Qf4 Nh5 22.Qe3 Qb7 23.f4 Rxb2 24.Bxh5 d5 25.Bxg6 d4 26.Bxh7+ Kf8 27.Qf2 dxc3 28.Qxc5+ Qe7 29.Qd4 Qg7 30.Qd6+ Qe7 31.Qd4 Qg7 ½–½ (31) Mccambridge,V (2350)-Westerinen,H (2425) Hamburg 1981
10...h5
I was expecting: 10...e5 11.d5 Na5 12.Ng3 b4 13.Nb1 c6 14.dxc6 b3 15.a3 Be6 16.Qxd6 Qc8 17.c7 Ra8 18.Qc5 Nb7 19.Qb6 Nd7 20.Rxd7 Bxd7 21.Nc3 Re8 22.Nd5 Be6 23.c5 f5 24.Ne2 f4 25.Bf2 Bxd5 26.exd5 e4 27.fxe4 Rxe4 28.Nc3 Rd4 29.d6 Na5 30.Bxd4 Bxd4 31.Bd3 Bxc3 32.c6 Be5 33.Qxa5 Qe6 34.Re1 Qxd6 35.Bc4+ 1–0 (35) Knaak,R (2520)-Gufeld,E (2525) Yurmala 1978;
10...Na5 This game was very important. I adopted the Nf4–g4–strategy from it! 11.Nf4 c6 12.g4 Nd7 13.h5 e5 14.hxg6 exf4 15.gxh7+ Kh8 16.Bxf4 Nb7 17.d5 b4 18.Ne2 cxd5 19.cxd5 Na5 20.Nd4 Nc5 21.Qh2 Bxd4 22.Rxd4 Nab3+ 23.axb3 Nxb3+ 24.Kb1 Nxd4 25.Bxd6 Nxf3 26.Qh6 Bxg4 27.Bxb8 Qe7 28.Bd6 Qxe4+ 29.Bd3 Nd2+ 30.Ka1 1–0 (30) Supp Walter (GER) (2284)-Schmidt Gunar (GER), corr, 1976
11.Nf4
I was not convinced about this game: 11.Bh6 e5 12.Bxg7 Kxg7 13.d5 Na5 14.cxb5 axb5 15.Ng3 b4 16.Nb5 c6 17.dxc6 Nxc6 18.Qg5 Qb6 19.Rxd6 Qc5+ 20.Kb1 b3 21.Qxf6+ Kh7 22.Rxc6 bxa2+ 23.Ka1 Qf2 24.Bc4 Be6 25.Nxh5 Rg8 26.Qxe5 1–0 (26) Ivanov,I-Blocker,C Parma 1985
11...bxc4!
I had anticipated ...b4, but my opponent plays a very strong move opening the b-line!
I was a great admirer of Jan Timman and studied his games very often: 11...Bd7 12.cxb5 axb5 13.Nxb5 e5 14.dxe5 Nxe5 15.Nc3 Qc8 16.b3 Re8 17.Nd3 Nc6 18.Nf4 Ne5 19.Nd3 Nc6 20.Nf4 ½–½ (20) Timman,J (2600)-Nunn,J (2565) Tilburg 1982
12.Bxc4
We are still playing book moves (E84: King's Indian: Sämisch Panno: 7 Nge2 a6 8 Qd2 Rb8).]
12...e6N
This was a novelty at the time. I believe it is a weak move. Maybe reflecting the playing style of my opponent. Better must be the book move ...e5, which I had anticipated much earlier.
I knew this game: 12...e5 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Bb3 Qe8 15.Nfd5 (I also knew this game: 15.Rde1 a5 16.Nd3 Be6 17.Ba4 Bd7 18.Bb3 Be6 ½–½ (18) Zelinskis Jury (ISR) (2612)-Batakovs,O (2428), corr, 1984) 15...Nxd5 16.Nxd5 Be6 17.Qa5 Bxd5 18.Qxd5 c5 19.Rd2 c4 0–1 (27) Ree,H (2500)-Mestel,A (2505) Plovdiv 1983
13.g4!?
This reflects my aggressive style. Modern engines prefer safer moves such as 13.Kb1 or 13.Bb3
13...hxg4?
I was expecting: 13...e5! 14.Nxg6! exd4 15.Bxd4 (15.Nxf8? dxc3 16.bxc3 Ne5–+) 15...Nxd4 16.Qxd4 (16.Nxf8? Nxf3 17.Qf2 Ne5–+) 16...Nxg4
14.h5!+–
14...Na5
Black's attack is slower
15.Bf1?
Engine correctly prefers 15.Bd3
15...gxf3? 16.hxg6
Strongly threatening Qh2. Engine prefers 16.h6
16...Ng4 17.gxf7+
I took control of the game after the opening. Maybe my opponent was crushed psychologically, because he resigned after this.
Engine prefers 17.Nh5 Rb4 18.Nxg7 fxg6 19.d5 exd5 20.Qxd5+ Kxg7 21.Bg5 Bb7 22.Qxa5 Rb5 23.Bxd8 Rxa5 24.Bxc7 Rxa2 25.Kb1 Nf2 26.Rd3
1–0
