The online edition of the rulebook, https://new.uschess.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/us-chess-rule-book-online-2026.pdf, needs to be updated to have the new correspondence rules that became effective October 1.
its in the mail??
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Looks like they are already posted online on the Correspondence Chess pages where I assume most correspondence chess players would go looking for them:
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That doesn’t mean the online edition of the rulebook shouldn’t be updated.
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I agree, but I think there will be an update Jan 1 for the updated rules changes from the Delegates meeting so might as well post it all at once.
Personally I’m of the opinion certain things like this, the correspondence rules, and certainly things like the TD Certification Rules, shouldn’t be in the the actual Rulebook. This makes it difficult to make necessary adjustments in a timely manner because you have to wait for an annual delegates meeting for approval, because they are the only body that can approve changes to the “Rulebook”.
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For certification rule changes the delegates long ago gave the certification committee the ability to change the certification rules without delegate input by submitting the requested changed to the EB and having the EB approve them. That is how we were able to get on-line events added as certification substitution credits early in the Covid lockdown without having to wait for the Delegates meeting.
The expectation was that any certification rules the delegates actually passed on its own would be left alone unless the delegates voted for a change and no committee member has ever been stupid enough to try to go against that expectation.
Over the years pretty much every committee-initiated change has been to make it easier to obtain or retain certification levels.
One example where that wasn’t true is when the delegates referred a request to the committee to add an NTD requirement to make NTD more difficult to get. We did not see a good reason to do so when the referred it to us but then they referred it back to us the following year so we came up with first requiring either 6 months as ANTD or a good evaluation from working a US Chess organized national. The EB’s response was unappreciative (so it was not implemented), as was the delegates’ response the following year. At least that meant we no longer had to add a requirement we didn’t really want to add.