Expert: Tony D'Aloisio - 3/23/2009

Question
My friend and I used to play Chess with Yahoo Messenger. We
have had nothing but trouble for quite a while. Our games would quit halfway through, or we couldn't even start the game. Can you give us any tips on where we could go to play
Chess like we used to? We would like to find a site where we could play some private games without any hassle or comlications. It seems like we were doing okay until my friend got a new laptop with a slower hard drive. Could that be part of the problem? We sure hope you can help us!
John

Answer
Well, I am admittedly far from an expert on computers.  But I think, regardless of whether your laptop is the culprit or not, you can find a number of better places to play chess online than Yahoo.

Basically, there are two options for playing chess on the Web.  You can 1) play "live," i.e., in real time, with time limits of say 15 minutes per game for each player; or 2) play "turn-based," i.e., where the time limit is say one move per day (or longer), and you log in whenever you wish to make (or respond to) another move.

For live chess the long-time leader has been the Internet Chess Club (ICC).  They do charge a fee for membership, but there are thousands of players logged on at any one time, including many of the world's best.  If you want to play someone else, or just want to watch two Grandmasters going at it, ICC is probably the best choice.

Another perennial favorite has been the Free Internet Chess Service (FICS).  As its name suggests, it is free of charge, and its design (as well as the commands and so forth) are based very closely on the ICC model.

For turn-based games, my personal favorite is Chess.com.  They have only been around for a couple of years, but already they boast a membership of 60,000.  It's friendly, free (for basic membership, which allows quite a bit of usage)...and I should point out that they also now host live chess as well (though that is still in its beta stage).  By the way, I play as tonydal on that site; should you decide to sign up for Chess.com and have any other questions about it, feel free to message me there.