Hobbies And Interests
Beginners
Most websites devoted to chess offer all of the basics needed to get started, from how to set up a board to how to move pieces. While some online resources are text-based, offering guides to read through and perhaps illustrations, others have interactive game boards or play videos to get you started. For example, Chess.com lets you play against the online computer and set the "Strength," or skill level, to "Easy."
Advancing
Once you have the basics down, you can get into the real heart of chess at any number of sites. Chess Guru offers detailed tutorials, which are step-by-step guides for every aspect of the game, including openings, middle games, end games and chess strategies. Expert Chess Strategies focuses on helping intermediate and accomplished players advance. It offers videos that examine in detail everything from opening traps to the Sicilian Defense.
Fun and Facts
Not all chess sites focus exclusively on playing the game; some add history lessons, contests and lighthearted learning. Chess Kids Academy is specifically tailored for kids, but the site is open to anyone. While it offers animated rooms where you can learn different aspects of chess, such as the "War Room," where "battles" takes place, the real fun of the site is taking the online quizzes and other activities that can do things such as improve your memory and test your personality. Expert Chess Strategies, on the other hand, is a historical gold mine, with page after page devoted to world champions and their games. One section alone focuses on the only American to win the world title, Bobby Fischer. It provides not only a detailed biography of Fischer, but you can also follow along through what seems an inexhaustible supply of replays of his matches.
Advantages
Many online chess sites are free, meaning you don't have to even buy a board to play. You simply sign up if necessary and find a game. There also are an inexhaustible number of opponents to choose from, starting with computers of various artificial intelligence levels to players from all over the world. You can make friends, find players of the same skill level--or slightly better, since you want to improve--and play any time of day or night.
Disadvantages
A longstanding debate in the chess community focuses on whether playing chess is really mostly mathematics or if there is something more personal involved. When you play online against a computer or even against a human, there is little doubt that what is happening on the board is everything. But as Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgar points out: "Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don't have this when you play a computer." In other words, sitting across the chess board from your opponent is often said to add a dimension to the game that is simply not available online.
Chess Variants
Although purists will argue there is only one way to play chess, there are many variations available, from the silly to the bizarre. If you want something different, try Path Guy. What the site lacks in sophistication--the graphics are mediocre--it more than makes up for in variety. There are hundreds of chess variations, from "Capture the flag," which is like playing tag as a kid, to "Magic Carpet Chess," which features two teleportation devices.