| BrainKing | From far the best website for playing chess (and other board games) in a turn-based way. Turn-based play is the Internet version of correspondence play, but much nicer to play because moves can be played directly on the boards.
Brainking offers numerous of the best chess variants : Ambiguous Chess, Losing Chess, Chessgi, Extinction Chess, Three-check Chess, Knight Relay Chess, Dark Chess, Xiangqi, shogi, and some 20 more anecdotic variants.
Free with some few restrictions versus the paying member status (which is anyway a tremendous value). Essential! |
| Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) | The best live chess server ; all for free, allows to play Losing Chess, Bughouse, Chessgi, Atomic Chess with the best players in the world.
Oh, and if you want you can also play boring orthodox chess there. Highly recommended! |
