Playing chess online

[John Coleman]

I don't play online, but a parent has asked me for suggestions for her son, age 12. They live in the boonies, no chess clubs within a reasonable distance.

Any suggestions?

[Craig Sadler]

Re: Playing chess online

I don't play online, but a parent has asked me for suggestions for her son, age 12. They live in the boonies, no chess clubs within a reasonable distance.

Any suggestions?

i like chess.com...the setup is easy and the price is right :) there's correspondence games and "live" chess...including people looking for G/60s.

[David Ottosen]

Re: Playing chess online

I have been playing on freechess.org since the early 90s.

[Ernest Klubis]

Re: Playing chess online

Chess Assistant Club and Playok

[Erwin Casareno]

Re: Playing chess online

I play regulalry at yahoo.com --see games section.

i also play poker there.
for bowling i go to Bowlerama at Kennedy/Lawrence.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Playing chess online

Hi John, I refer all my students to chess.com. I have had complaints about other sites about poor language and poor sportsmanship - as far as I am concerned chess.com has the least of those problems. Also there is a very large selection of opponents almost all the time and they do a good job of advertising local clubs and instructors. (and maybe best of all its still free (I think)).

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Playing chess online

May you be more specific about the "online"?

1-15 min - playchess.com (Chessbase)
for slightly longer controls become difficult to find opponents
for very long ( >move/day) control - chess.com (however, this site has a lot of distractions - forums, articles lessons, problems, chats, banners :D


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Should we organize Canadian Playchess championship (1+0; or 3+0 ? :)

[Alexandru Florea]

Re: Playing chess online

I suggest playchess.com because most software that uses the fritz (fritz, junior, hiarcs, shredder...) interface comes with a one year subscription to playchess. If they want a free server, then FICS is a good idea.

Alex

[Dan Scoones]

Re: Playing chess online

I like Chess Assistant Club for three reasons:

1. It's free to join and free to play.
2. Most of the players are Russian. Russians play very interesting chess.
3. Most of the players display good sportsmanship; for example, they will usually accept a draw when it's a dead draw, even if you're behind on the clock.

The only thing I don't like is that none of the Cyrillic fonts available to me are recognized by the server, so it's difficult to chat with other players. I suppose I could spell phonetically with a Latin font, but that always feels lame.

[Jason Nguyen]

Re: Playing chess online

ChessCube
Very nice looking site and entirely Flash based so nothing to download (except Flash of course but virtually everybody already has it). That means you can play just about anywhere without needing to download client software and your settings are saved on the server.

It's free with optional premium ($$) offerings as well.

[Ernest Klubis]

Re: Playing chess online

I like Chess Assistant Club for three reasons:

1. It's free to join and free to play.
2. Most of the players are Russian. Russians play very interesting chess.
3. Most of the players display good sportsmanship; for example, they will usually accept a draw when it's a dead draw, even if you're behind on the clock.

The only thing I don't like is that none of the Cyrillic fonts available to me are recognized by the server, so it's difficult to chat with other players. I suppose I could spell phonetically with a Latin font, but that always feels lame.

Hi Dan,

Have you installed a special font for Chess Assistant that available from chessok website?

[Bill Evans]

Re: Playing chess online

Hi Hans,

I agree with you. chess.com is the pick of the crop.

It may be of interest to you that Canadian National Masters and FM's receive free platinum memberships for the asking.

The site boasts over 1,000,000 (read 1 million registered members of which 50,000 are Canadian!)

[John Henry]

Re: Playing chess online

As a Instructor for over 20 years I do NOT recommend young ones-12 is young-playing on line. Some students I know of have had bad experiences on line.Try Fritz and Chessmaster-both excellent programmes with plenty of partners and playing styles.