Stuff I like: Adam Bozon's Homepage

[ http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/ ]

I originally stumbled on this page while looking for new openings to use in my chess games (I've been thoroughly defeated multiple times by the same few individuals).

Of note are the inclusion of a multitude of scrabble aids as well as things like opening statistics for chess.

Stuff I like: Lichess

[ http://lichess.org/ ].

I'm not really that good at chess- this, I'll admit.

I've been working on my game, though (after years of not playing), and this site is like the chatroulette of chess. If you can't find someone else to play with, you can try to play the machine, but it's almost guaranteed that you'll lose (so far as I can tell, anyway).

Easy mode: play against the machine at level 1, and use another tab to play against the machine as the opposite side. Pit the machine against itself, and you'll (at some point) win.

Hard mode: play against the machine at level one without any help. Expect to lose even if you're experienced with standard tactics.

Nightmare mode: play against the machine at level 8, expect to lose really quickly.

The whole concept of chess960 is really cool, but I'm even worse at that then I am at normal chess. The concept of the game being less about knowing openings and responses and more about improvising and thinking ahead is definitely a good thing, though.