Basic principles

PlayChess offers chess tournaments with slow time controls, something in the order of one move per day. Chess of this type is often called email chess, because you could play it by email alone.

On this site, however, you have online chess boards for your games, allowing you to make your moves interactively. You need not keep track of your games, calculate the time on your clock - all this is done automatically for you. As a supplement, the moves of your opponents can be sent to you by email.

Your player homepage

Registered players have a so-called player homepage on this site. This page keeps track of all games of the player. It is your central of command:

• It shows the games where you are to move and the clocks of these games.
• From there you jump to your games to enter your moves.
• You can enroll in new tournaments or visit your running for finished tournaments.
• From here you reach several statistics pages where you can see how your playing strength develops.

How does it work?

Shown on the right is the "main circuit" of events for two players playing a game in one of the tournaments.

1. Login at PlayChess
2. You are on your player homepage
3. You select one of your games
4. You make your move

Then you select another game until you have made all your moves. Now you can leave PlayChess - until one of your opponents has moved.

Email messages

These move notifications enable you to prepare your moves offline. This is very similar to conventional email chess. However, you need not (and cannot) send your moves by email. Instead, you "click in" your moves on the corresponding game pages.

But if you prefer, you can switch off the mail notifications. Then, you should visit your player homepage in regular intervals (once a day). This is the method of choice, if you want to use your games for practicing your over-the-board skills. Most players on this site do it that way.

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