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World Correspondence Chess Championship

The World Correspondence Chess Championship determines the World Champion in correspondence chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest the title. The official World Correspondence Chess Championship is managed by the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF).

The world championship comprises four stages: Preliminaries, Semi-Finals, Candidates' Tournament, and Final. ICCF tournament rules define which players can access each stage. The first-, second- and third-placed finishers from the previous Final, and the first- and second-placed finishers from the Candidates' Tournaments have access to the World Correspondence Chess Championship Final.

The ICCF also manages the Ladies World Correspondence Chess Championships, that comprises Semi-Finals and Final.

World Champions

Dates given are the period in which the final of the championship took place, as given on the ICCF website.

Cecil Purdy, the inaugural World Correspondence Chess Champion

  1. Cecil John Seddon Purdy (1950-53)
  2. Viacheslav Ragozin (1956-59)
  3. Albéric O'Kelly de Galway (1959-62)
  4. Vladimir Zagorovsky (1962-65)
  5. Hans Berliner (1965-68)
  6. Horst Rittner (1968-71)
  7. Yakov Estrin (1972-76)
  8. Jørn Sloth (1975-80)
  9. Tõnu Õim (1977-83)
  10. Victor Palciauskas (1978-84)
  11. Fritz Baumbach (1983-89)
  12. Grigory Sanakoev (1984-91)
  13. Mikhail Umansky (1989-98)
  14. Tõnu Õim (1994-2000)
  15. Gert Jan Timmerman (1996-2002)
  16. Tunç Hamarat (1999-2004)
  17. Ivar Bern (2002-07)
  18. Joop van Oosterom (2003-05)
  19. Christophe Léotard (2004-07)
  20. Pertti Lehikoinen (2004-11)
  21. Joop van Oosterom (2005-08)
  22. Aleksandr Surenovich Dronov (2007-10)
  23. Ulrich Stephan (2007-10)
  24. Marjan Šemrl (2009-11)
  25. Fabio Finocchiaro (2009-13)
  26. Ron Langeveld (2010-14)
  27. Aleksandr Surenovich Dronov (2011-14)

Ladies World Champions

First World Championship (1968/71)

  1. Olga Rubtsova (1968-72)
  2. Lora Jakovleva (1972-77)
  3. Ljuba Kristol (1978-84)
  4. Liudmila Belavenets (1984-92)
  5. Ljuba Kristol (1993-98)
  6. Alessandra Riegler (2000-05)
  7. Olga Mikhailovna Sukhareva (2002-06)
  8. Olga Mikhailovna Sukhareva (2007-10)
  9. Irina Vladimirovna Perevertkina (2011-14)

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