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Play Chess At Your Own Pace
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Play Opponents Anywhere In The World
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Play Without Additional Software
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Chess games can last for hours, days or even weeks.
Time per move is set at the beginning of the game, for example 'Timeout: 3 days'.
Each player then has up to '3 days' to make their move during
the duration of that chess game.
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You are not chained to your own country anymore.
Anybody with an internet connection worldwide can login and play against you.
An opponent from some exotic countries could be attacking your King!
Both of you can have 12 hours time zone difference and you will still have a nice chess game.
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No chess software to download before playing chess.
The game interface has been designed to run in your normal browser window.
Play online chess for free - no obligations!
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Dylan Loeb McClain. December 2, 2009
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Strategically, chess may not be the most complicated game, but it can be daunting to learn. Part of the reason is the vast literature about how to play - particularly about the opening phase, the first 15 moves or so.
There are more than 1,300 openings. Most tournament players focus on a small number suited to their style.
Thirty years ago, the top players would also concentrate on a few openings, but today's stars are more flexible. The Internet, the widespread use of computers that play chess, and databases of games have forced them to change. Modern players know more than their predecessors, so they are more comfortable with a wider range of positions. They also closely study their rivals' games.
As a result, opening choices are less influenced by taste and more by psychology. Is the opponent's style aggressive or conservative? Does he play more by calculation or by feel? Does he favor open positions, or does he slowly maneuver behind a wall of pawns? And, of course, which openings does he prefer?
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Fischer’s Death, Anand’s Title, and Other Big Stories of 2008
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Champions, old and new, were the biggest stories of 2008, with the year producing great games and great finishes.
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Sergey's life is devoted to chess, mother says
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Grand Master Sergey Karjakin might be the highest ranked player in the ongoing Asian Chess Champions League but he is still a teenager accompanied by his proud mother Tatania to all the international tournaments he takes part in.
Sergey made history and headlines when he became the youngest ever Grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months.
With an elo rating of 2730, Sergey is the highest ranked player and shoulders the hopes of the hosts to win the title.
His mother talks about the genius early years and how he became a legend in the game.
"He was five when he started playing chess with members of the family, and when he was six he joined a local chess club," she said. "I will never forget when he came to me and said a€?Mum, I can't live without playing chess'."
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The Wonder Match
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 A 13-year-old is introduced to the chess world.
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Chess battle at North Pole
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Sunday, Dec. 21, was the solstice and the first day of Hanukkah. It also marked the date of the much anticipated grudge match between Santa Claus and Rudolph.
The source of the tension was their draw at the North Pole Championship in September. The game ended in a time scramble, as hoof and hand pounded the clock after each move. Rudolph fouled in the scramble when the compact horn on his front right hoof touched a pawn before moving his queen out of danger. The elves and reindeer inhaled as one but Santa moved before the arbiter could compel Rudolph to move his pawn, as required by the touch move rule.
On Santa’s next move he, too, accidentally touched the wrong piece, as he reached to check Rudolf with his rook Santa’s sleeve brushed against his king. Dancer and Dasher burst out “Touch move!” But Rudolpf moved his king out of check before the arbiter again acted.
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Remarkable Unbeaten Streak Ends During Grand Prix Clash
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In Round 1 of the third Grand Prix tournament, which began last weekend in Elista, Russia, Wang Yue was upended by Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia, ending an 82-game winning streak.
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Dylan Loeb McClain. Dec 19, 2008
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In chess, consistency is hard to achieve. It is possible to play a series of great moves, and maybe a few great games, but doing it day to day, month after month, is supremely difficult.
A player may become ill, face a better-prepared opponent, or suffer a lapse in concentration during a game leading to a fatal mistake. So, when a player puts together a long unbeaten streak, it is something special.
That is what Wang Yue of China did. After losing his first game in the Reykjavik Open in March, he played 82 games without a loss. During his streak he often competed against the world's best players, and his world ranking rose to 11 from 31.
He also tied for first in the World Chess Federation's first Grand Prix tournament in Azerbaijan, and for third place in the second one in Russia. That put him in the lead of the Grand Prix.
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For School, National Chess Champions in 3 Grades
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Teams from Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn won the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade championships at a national chess championship in Florida last weekend.
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Popularity of Chess Hindered by Chaotic Leadership
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Chess requires exceptional reasoning ability, but problems besetting the game seem to defy logic.
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CHESS By Lubomir Kavalek, December 15, 2008
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The defending champion, the Dallas Destiny, won the 2008 United States Chess League, a 14-team Internet competition that ended this month. Dallas's final match against the Boston Blitz was tied 2-2, but IM Davorin Kuljasevic won the title for Dallas, defeating former U.S. champion Larry Christiansen in the last game of the blitz tiebreak.
An Attacking Gem
Before the match went into the tiebreak, Christiansen smashed IM Marko Zivanic with a powerful attack, most likely to be the best game of the competition. It matters to the Boston grandmaster how he wins. He created many beautiful combinations and spectacular sacrifices during his successful career. Tease him, leave your king in the center, and he will charge like a bull. Accept his sacrifices and he rips you apart. Playing over Christiansen's win in the Taimanov Sicilian against Zivanic is pure joy.
Christiansen-Zivanic
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Magnus Carlsen quits Grand Prix
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The World Chess Federation (FIDE) plans to begin the third tournament of its Grand Prix series today in Elista, Russia. The first two Grand Prix tournaments were unqualified successes, featuring exciting battles between many of the world's top 20 grandmasters. The forecast for the rest of the series is less rosy.
When organizers of Grand Prix events in Qatar and Switzerland backed out, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov moved the Qatar tournament to his hometown of Elista and announced that Armenia would host a tournament. But FIDE also changed the rules, making the Grand Prix leader merely one of eight contenders in a tournament that would determine the challenger in the 2010 world championship. This decision was viewed as an attempt to finagle Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, stars who had scorned the Grand Prix, into the world championship cycle. Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian, winners of the first two Grand Prix tournaments, protested.
Carlsen withdrew from the Grand Prix after an unsatisfying reply from FIDE. The father of the 18-year-old prodigy posted these explanations at the website blog.magnuschess.com: "What we want from FIDE are transparent processes, fairness and predictability" and "Magnus is simply not motivated to continue the GP series with these dramatically changed conditions."
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College Star Helps Steer Dallas to Team’s Second League Title
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For the second consecutive year, Dallas’s chess team, the Dallas Destiny, has won the United States Chess League championship, which was held last weekend.
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Bu draws first blood in Super-GM
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Probably the reader will laugh if you consideer the most curious first visit, almost ten years ago, when a Spanish company that was commissioned me to go to Tiankin (ten million inhabitants, 120 km from Beijing) to test chess clocks. My workday consisted of going to a factory at eight o'clock in the morning, choosing a box from any stack in the warehouse, extract the clocks, take them to a table, where I met with eight or ten workers (many of them with the traditional "Mao-style" shirts) and coordinate the incessant pressing of the clock buttons, until five in the afternoon (except for a meal break) to gauge their resistance.
The transformation of China had already begun at the time, but then, compared to what I see here today, the difference is as great as that between the Spain of the seventies and the present. In 1999 there were still more bicycles than cars. Today, traffic jams during peak hours are fierce, indeed, there are still more bikes than in Spain, but not many more than in Holland. Indeed, traffic lights count down the seconds, and so you know if you have time to make a call, clean your nails, do your lips take a bite from a snack before they turn green. It is a symbol of how the new Chinese capitalism, wild in appearance but fiercely controlled by a communist government, uses every second of time to continue growing at a brutal rate. But the crisis also looms for these individuals. Despite this, I am surprised that the price of gasoline is going down, because just the amount they are using here creates a tremendous demand.
And the differences in Nanjing (about 7.5 million inhabitants, in southeast China, 350 kilometers from Shanghai) are not just the traffic. The proliferation of highways, skyscrapers, neon lights, luxury department stores, cell phones, clothing, Western multinational ads (107 companies are based in Nanjing), McDonalds restaurants, supermarkets Ikea furniture, etc. is such that if you take away the signs in Chinese and switch to people from another country, you could be in any large city in Europe or America.
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CHESS By Lubomir Kavalek
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"You have to be at least 35 to understand [Fyodor] Dostoevski," my professor at George Washington University, Charles Moser, once told me. Such mature appreciation is reserved in chess for Emanuel Lasker, the world champion from 1894 to 1921. He was an extraordinary fighter and playing him always meant a long, difficult struggle. A great defender by nature, Lasker would save bad positions by chipping away at his opponent's advantage move by move. This was hard to do and not many young chess players picked up Lasker's opaque playing style. They were much more likely to emulate Alexander Alekhine's astonishing combinations or Mikhail Tal's mesmerizing, magical attacks.
Fortunately, Lasker was an excellent writer. The legendary "Lasker's Manual of Chess" is a marvelous teaching tool, meticulously composed. The new edition is enhanced with photographs, historical references and computer analysis. In a memorable tournament book, "St. Petersburg 1909," Lasker, who won the event together with Akiva Rubinstein, commented on all 175 games. His clear and concise notes are now presented in algebraic notation. In another book, "Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual," the well-known Russian coach pays tribute to Lasker in a special chapter, analyzing five of his games in great depth. Tournament players could benefit from all three books, recently published by Russell Enterprises.
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A Former Champion Proves She Hasn’t Lost Her Touch
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At the recent Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, Maia Chiburdanidze was the top player on her team, and she turned in far and away the best performance of any competitor.
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Dylan Loeb McClain: Chess
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It is inevitable that young phenomena and new champions hog the limelight, but sometimes ex-champions remind the world why they were, and in some cases still are, so great.
At the recent Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, the women's section was won by the team from Georgia, the No. 4 seed. It was a return to glory for Georgia, which last won gold in 1996 and had not medaled at the biennial event since winning a silver in 2000.
Georgia was once synonymous with women's chess because it was home to the two women who, between them, held the world title from 1962 to 1991.
Nona Gaprindashvili, now 67, reigned from 1962 to 1978. She was dethroned by Maia Chiburdanidze, who held the crown until 1991. Chiburdanidze, now 47, is still ranked No. 18 in the world among women.
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Carlsen on the Grand Prix
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The cauldron is on the boil, FIDE has changed the World Championship qualification regulations, Alexei Shirov has lodged a protest. Now Magnus Carlsen, represented by his father Henrik, hints at legal action and withdrawal from the cycle. We bring you a report from his blog and feedback from readers on this and other subjects (including Aronian on women and computers!).
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The World Is Catching Up With Russia
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The United States’ status in the global chess hierarchy is rising, while Russia’s once dominant position is waning.
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Susan Polgar recaps her time at the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden
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Everything must come to an end. Here in Dresden at the 38th Chess Olympiad, that day has arrived.
The 2008 Chess Olympiad began on Nov. 11 with a spectacular Opening Ceremony at Dresden's Freiberger Stadium. It was an amazing show with a wide number of musical acts, dance performance, ice skating show and much more. Everyone could sense the FIDE motto "Gens Una Sumus" (we are one family) coming alive. The Olympiad flames were lit and the games began.
All players arrived in Dresden to compete, fulfill, and accomplish goals set forth by each player and team. For some players, their goal is to aim for the Gold while for others it may be to improve on the previous Olympiad performance in Turino, Italy. No matter what it is, everyone competed hard. However, a Chess Olympiad is a lot more than that. All participants got to meet a lot of old friends while making new ones from all over the world.
The entire Dresden Chess Olympiad was broadcast on Chess TV and all games can be seen live via the Internet. Chess enthusiasts in the 21st century are very fortunate because they do not need to travel to Dresden to feel the action. Anyone could sit at home in front of their computer and for the first time in the history of chess Olympiads, witness the entire spectacle.
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Armenia wins 2nd consecutive Chess Olympiad gold
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DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — Armenia won its second straight gold medal at the Chess Olympiad Tuesday by defeating China 2.5-1.5 in the 11th and final round.
Armenia's only win came on board four where Tigran L. Petrosian beat Li Chao. Armenia finished the tournament alone in first place with 19 points. Two points are awarded for each match win and one for a tie.
Israel took silver with 18 points after beating the Netherlands 2.5-1.5.
The United States took bronze on a tiebreaker after upsetting second-seed Ukraine with a 3.5-0.5 drubbing, getting wins from Gata Kamsky against Vassily Ivanchuk on board one, Alexander Onischuk against Pavel Eljanov on board three, and Yuri Shulman against Zahar Efimenko on board four. Hikaru Nakamura of the United States drew Sergey Karjakin on board two.
The rout left the teams tied at 17 points but gave the medal to the U.S.
"This result was without parallel, out of the blue, especially since Ukraine had not lost a match yet in the tournament," said U.S. team captain John Donaldson.
The results mirrored those at the 2006 Olympiad in Turin, Italy — there, Armenia took the gold and the U.S. got bronze on a tiebreaker.
"Winning the gold already feels like something we're getting used to," Levon Aronian, first board for Armenia, said with a smile.
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Lightning Attacks Rule the Day at a Hard-Fought Olympiad
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An unusually high number of games at the Chess Olympiad being held in Dresden, Germany, have ended in mating attacks.
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Armenia retains top spot in Chess Olympiad
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DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — Top-seeded Russia held off the United States in the 38th Chess Olympiad in round eight of open division play Friday, but the Armenian team crushed France and stayed in first place.
In women's division play, the U.S. team dealt a severe blow to the medal hopes of the Russian team, also the top seed, beating it 3-1. The win gave the U.S. team 6.5 match points to keep it in a second-place tie with several others.
The U.S. was led by Irina Krush, who beat women's world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk on board one. She sacrificed a pawn on move 16. Her compensation was dubious until Kosteniuk misplaced her rook. Kosteniuk managed to come up with some tactical complications but they could not save her in the end.
The Americans also picked up a win from Anna Zatonskih on board two against Tatiana Kosintseva, who sacrificed a pawn only to fritter away her compensation before losing a second pawn and the game.
The other two games in the match, Rusudan Goletiani against Tatiana's sister Nadezhda Kosintseva, and American Katerina Rohonyan against Ekaterina Korbut, were drawn.
In open division play, Russia edged the United States 2.5-1.5.
The Americans won on board one as Gata Kamsky downed Peter Svidler. But the other three boards went badly, although Alexander Onischuk salvaged a draw for the U.S. on board three when Alexander Morozevich blundered in a winning endgame.
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Russia defeats England at Chess Olympiad
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DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — Top seed Russia bounced back after drawing Germany in the last round to beat England 3-1 Wednesday in round six of open division play at the Chess Olympiad.
The Russian team was led by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik over Nigel Short on board one.
Short gave up a rook and two pawns for two knights and was then ground down.
Russia's other win came from Dmitry Jakovenko on board four at the expense of Stuart Conquest.
The other two games, England's David Howell versus Peter Svidler and Russia's Alexander Morozevich versus Gawain Jones were drawn.
It was a big win for Russia, after 11th-seed Germany had battled all four games against them to a draw in round five of the biennial tournament on Monday.
The 38th Chess Olympiad, which started Nov. 13, includes 146 teams in the open division — often referred to as the men's division although it includes a few women. The separate women's division includes 111 teams.
In other open division play, Armenia kept pace with the Russians by beating Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5. The two teams are now tied for first with 5.5 match points out of six and will meet in round seven.
The United States defeated Cuba 2.5-1.5. Hikaru Nakamura seemed to have lost early on against Cuba's Lazaro Bruzon but turned the game around for the win. Yuri Shulman also won for the Americans, against Jesus Nogueiras.
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Germany holds off Russia in Chess Olympiad
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DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — Russia's chess team, hailed as the highest rated ever assembled for a Chess Olympiad, hit a bump Monday as 11th-seed Germany battled all four games against them to a draw in round five of the biennial tournament in open division play.
Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik played the super-solid Petroff Defense against Germany's No. 1 Arkadij Naiditsch. By move 24, the position was symmetrical with opposite-color bishops. But under the rules, draw offers are not allowed until after move 30. They shook hands on move 31.
On board two, Alexander Grischuk of Russia sacrificed a pawn against Germany's Igor Khenkin. He had some initiative but after Khenkin gave back the pawn, the position was dead even and they also had nothing to do but play until move 31.
On board four, Daniel Fridman could do nothing with an extra pawn against Russia's Dmitry Jakovenko. In the last game to finish, German Jan Gustafsson successfully defended a pawn-down endgame against Alexander Morozevich.
In other play, the United States men's team crushed a much weaker Hong Kong team 4-0, almost without effort. The U.S. open division team's Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Yuri Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian — all strong grandmasters — had little trouble against Hong Kong's two promising juniors and two amateurs.
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Susan Polgar recounts a memorable game in the 2004 Chess Olympiad
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Here is the question of the week: Is chess an Olympic sport?
Actually, chess is a member of the International Olympic Committee. However, chess has its own Olympiad which usually has even more nations competing than the summer or winter Olympics.
The 2008 World Chess Olympiad officially began Wednesday night in Dresden, Germany. The event will last until Nov. 25 at the International Congress Center. The planning for this Olympiad took five years and the reward is Dresden is the host of a record-breaking Chess Olympiad with 2,169 participants (including coaches and captains, etc.) representing 156 teams from 152 nations.
I competed in a total of four Chess Olympiads starting in Greece in 1988, and my last was in Spain in 2004. I won a total of 10 medals, which consist of five Gold, four Silver, and one Bronze. I hold the current Olympiad record of a 56-consecutive-game scoring streak on board one, and I have never lost a single game in Olympiad competition.
In this Chess Olympiad, I had the honor to be asked to be the official Olympiad Ambassador, as well as lighting the Olympiad torch at the Opening Ceremony on Wednesday.
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An Expert at Computer Play Takes the World Senior Title
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Larry Kaufman, an international master who turned 61 on Saturday, received an early birthday present last weekend: He won the World Senior Championship.
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Uncertainty Surrounds Match Between Kamsky and Topalov
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A world championship semifinal match between Gata Kamsky of the United States and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria is facing an uncertain future after the putative sponsor of the match failed to provide the financing for it — and after Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of the World Chess Federation apparently backed off his pledge to put up the prize fund if the original sponsor failed to come up with the funds.
The Bulgarian Chess Federation has now offered to hold the match, but not until February. Kamsky, who is now competing in the Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, has yet to respond to the new offer. Previously, he had expressed concern about playing a match in Topalov’s home country.
The match is a semifinal for the world championship. Under the terms of a convoluted agreement, the winner of the match is supposed to play a title match against Viswanathan Anand of India, who won the world championship match last month.
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38th Chess Olympiad to open in Dresden
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DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — The highly rated Russian team led by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik will enter the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden as the clear favorite, but one American grandmaster says the U.S. is fielding its strongest ever team.
The 13-day tournament starting Thursday includes 154 teams in the open division — often referred to as the men's division although it includes a few women — and 116 in a separate women's division.
Ukraine is ranked second behind Russia in the open division, with China third, Azerbaijan fourth and Hungary fifth. The next five teams are, in order, Bulgaria, France, Israel, Armenia, and the United States.
Yet some believe the U.S.'s No. 10 ranking is misleading and the open division team — almost identical to the one that took the bronze behind Armenia and China at the last Olympiad, in Turin, Italy, in 2006 — is actually much stronger.
American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan called the U.S. open team "the strongest team that America has ever fielded."
While he did not favor them for a medal, Seirawan said that first board Gata Kamsky of Brooklyn, New York, and second board 20-year-old Hikaru Nakamura of White Plains, New York, "are brimming with confidence and are dangerous players who can beat anyone on a given day."
American grandmaster Larry Christiansen said the "Americans are underrated in general compared to the Europeans. If they avoid jet lag, they can finish in the top five."
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Chess, spy style
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The 1963 James Bond movie From Russia with Love is likely the most famous movie of all time that incorporates chess.
The movie opens with Bond's archenemy, SPECTRE agent Grandmaster Kronsteen (Czechoslovakia) brilliantly defeating Grandmaster MacAdams (Canada) in the fictional Venice Invitational Grandmasters Championship.
The chess scene takes place in an old castle with a large demonstration board behind the stage where the magnetic pieces are moved with long sticks. A large audience quietly watches as the moves are called out in the old descriptive notation.
The grid
Movie position after 21...Bxe5.
The game continued, 22.Nxe5+ Kh7? (22...Ne6! may be winning or drawing as black is ahead in material if he survives White's attack) 23.Qe4+ Resigns
Do you know where this realistic chess position came from?
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Nearly 21, Grandmaster Starts to Live Up to His Potential
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After a fallow period following his initial burst of success, Hikaru Nakamura of the United States is becoming more consistent in his play.
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