If you’re looking for a good game of chess online, there are lots of places to play; and a few of them offer a very good chess experience that is comparable to the experience you would find in a good local chess club.
Free Internet Chess Server (FICS)
One of the best is a free service provided at www.freechess.org. The site has a lot of very strong and serious competitors, regular tournaments, relays of grandmaster tournament games, a lively community, ratings, and more.
Most of the games played at FICS are blitz (speed games) played at 3 to 5 minutes per game, though many blitz games are played with shorter or longer time limits. Many standard games are played at 15 minutes per game. Again, many games are played at longer time limits. FICS features many tournaments, including a popular team tournament played at 45/45 (meaning 45 minutes per game with a 45-second increment added for each move made).
Queen Alice Internet Chess Club
Another good free chess site is Queen Alice Internet Chess Club (www.queenalice.com). This is a “correspondence” type of chess, where games are played with a time limit one move every week, or even more slowly. Again, the site offers ratings and a lively community. If you prefer to play correspondence style, Queen Alice is a good choice. And the price is right!
GameKnot
GameKnot is also a correspondence type of site. The site offers both free and paid memberships, as well as lots of goodies, such as tactics and endgame practice. It also has a very nice interface.
I don’t have any affiliation with any of these chess clubs … I’m not making money for recommending them.
And if you have any other recommendations, please feel free to leave your recommendations in the comment box below. Please make sure that you are recommending free sites only.
You can find lots of free online chess on the internet these days.
Thanks for sharing the link – but regrettably it seems to be not working? Does anybody have a mirror or another web link?
Both freechess.org and queenalice.com appear to be working. Give it another try.
there are any chess website without the name of ‘chess’ in url? because everything were blocked at my office. *sigh
Here are a couple you might try: queenalice.com and gameknot.com. They are both correspondence-type chess sites, where the time control is measured in days per move, rather than minutes. I hope this helps somebody! 🙂
I would like to set up a free correspondence chess site. I already know how to make websites; however, I don’t know what sites like Queen Alice are using to manage the chess part of the page. Any idea where I can look?