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Chessville
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As a devoted, if miserable, chess player, I am always looking for new ways to get in some game action. Unfortunately, as the responsibilities of life begin to take an ever increasing bite out of my recreational time, it is often difficult to scratch the unrelenting chess itch. Sites that specialize in real-time chess games, such as the Free Internet Chess Server and Pogo, are great when you actually have the time to sit down for an hour or more for intense over-the-board (OTB) competition---but such moments are frequently rare. Sure, there are excellent chess programs, like Chessmaster 10, that provide an ever ready and patient chess opponent, but such programs don’t fill the all-important need to wade out amongst our fellow chess gladiators and best them. What to do? The answer is now here and it is called Chessworld.net!
Chessworld.net is a remarkable website that specializes in all forms of chess, from single games to tournaments, in a format that even the busiest person can accommodate to their schedule! Chessworld.net specializes in correspondence chess, that is, a system whereby players make their moves at a time and pace that suits them (correspondence chess is reputed to have originated in the medieval era when distant noblemen used messengers to play the Royal Game). For example, I will make a move and then email it (or just mail it) to my opponent. My opponent will then receive the move and, within an agreed upon allotment of time, will reply to my move and so on from there. The great benefit of this system is that it provides a very leisurely pace for the players, allowing those who might not be able to take the time to enjoy an OTB game to participate in a contest of chessic wits nonetheless. Finding a correspondence game on Chessworld.net is easy as you have all sorts of options. You can create your own games, or tournaments, with time controls from one to twenty days per move, and await any takers. You can also see what games others are offering. Or you can have the site auto-match you with another player. And if all of this wasn’t enough, the site can even make opponent recommendations based upon various factors that you can specify---from chess ratings to hobbies! It certainly doesn’t get any easier than that! Chessworld.net, in addition to providing a forum where over 220,000 members from all corners of the globe can play, also provides an easy to use web interface. No special software is needed! Simply log-on and the Chessworld.net interface will display the current board position for your game(s). Moving is as simple as point and click, with the added action of “confirming” the move. That’s all there is to it! The interface even provides a message area to converse with your opponent. When your opponent replies, you are emailed the move, provided in FEN notation with an optional graphical representation of the board, and a hyperlink to send you back to the proper game. Neat! Again, it doesn’t get any easier than that! Needless to say, upon completion, the concluded chess game is rated and added to your personal archive so others can peruse your victories (and defeats).
Besides being a venue for competition, Chessworld.net also provides all sorts of benefits. For example, every player is given a personnel homepage from which you can list all sorts of information about yourself, from nationality, to your favorite hobbies or chess strategies. The homepage serves as a portal for other players to get to know you and, if he desires, message you through the site’s own email system. Also, your homepage is a site to specify what holidays you will be unable to play in a game, via a handy graphical calendar. There are many, many other items that can be accessed through this site as well, and its parent “My Stuff” menu, from your membership details, to any teams that list you as a member. Chessworld.net also features a comprehensive set of forums that seem active (there is nothing worse than a site with dead forums). From asking basic questions about chess, to simple social chatting, there is a forum for you. A really enjoyable feature of these forums is that, with a click of the mouse, a member can link a forum post to a particular chess game or even paste a graphical copy of the current board position! This makes discussing a particular chess game so easy that I wondered why no one else had thought of it before! Excellent! There are other features of Chessworld.net that are pretty neat, from an inclusive list of internal and external chess links, to a very handy “What’s going on” menu that lists Chessworld.net news of the day and the many, many events that will keep this community thriving for years. And more…. Of course, a premium site like this offers premium services for its paying members. While anybody can join for free and enjoy the bare-bones playing and interface functions, a paid “full” member (at a reasonable $22.50 for a full year) gains access to special analysis boards, custom interfaces, and other features tailored for hardcore competition. Not so sure you want to pay for the full membership? You don’t necessarily have too as, in a clever bit of marketing, Chessworld.net offers a bounty system for earning free full membership time for every paying member you can get to sign up as a paying member. What is wrong with Chessworld.net? Very little. As a non-paying member, the site can be annoying to use, as many of the Chessworld.net features and options listed on your homepage are not available and simply hyperlink you to an enticement to become a paying member. Needless to say, this difficulty is easily removed by joining the club---which I heartily recommend as I have found little to criticize as a full member, and those criticisms are negligible. For example, the servers can be a little slow at times, but even at 56K, most game pages loaded very quickly (Chessworld.net recently upgraded their servers, so even this has become less of an issue for me). There are also a number of features that members have suggested are lacking from the site, such as an internal real-time chat ability, but these are not so much problems as just room for improvement---something which the administrators seem to regularly address in an ongoing commitment to improve the site. And that is really all I can criticize! Ah, but how does Chessworld.net compare to other chess servers? The only other chess server that I have found offers a similarly comprehensive range of features is Red Hot Pawn. Besides having an amusing name, Red Hot Pawn does offer a more colorful interface with a larger selection of stylized chess sets to utilize (albeit Chessworld.net offers a better range of board colors). Also, I found navigating Red Hot Pawn to be slightly easier than that of Chessworld.net, although in fairness, this could be attributed to the greater number of selections available on the Chessworld.net menus. Red Hot Pawn also offers the added ability to form chess “clans” as well as participation in “sieges” whereby a board must be defended against all challengers with the winner becoming (remaining) the defender. These two forms of competition add a little extra spice into competitive play. Finally, if you wish to remain as a non-paying member of either service, I did find Red Hot Pawn to be a friendlier service to use, one that didn’t feel inclined to remind me to pay my dues at every opportunity. But those are the only noticeable advantages of the competition, and with a membership fee of $29.95, higher than that of Chessworld.net, these slight advantages do not seem worthy of the increased expense. Therefore, in my book, Chessworld.net still reigns supreme. Chessworld.net is a great service to the email correspondence chess world. Whether you are new to the “Game of Kings and Queens”, or a seasoned veteran, there is something here for you. I can tell you that a number of my jaded chess friends, who long ago gave up on active play, have quickly entered the fray yet again upon receiving an invitation from me to try this clever site. Once you succumb to this siren of Cassia, it is very difficult to escape! Give it a try today! Visit Chessworld.net at: www.letsplaychess.net or www.chessworld.net.
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