Chess on the Internet

For the past five years I've been playing chess on the Internet. It has all the convenience of playing from home, finding opponents of your own strength and chatting with people around the world. I've spoken to Russian lawyers, Chinese soldiers, Antarctic scientists, and just about everybody else you could name.

"Chess Genie, what happened to that guy who beat you at chess?" "The one who wanted to be irresistible to women?" "Yeah, that one." "I turned him into a Visa card."

The club I play with is the World Chess Network based in New York, and with them I can play friendly games, tournaments, challenge a master, watch world tournament games in progress (with commentary) and a host of other things.

Of course, the type of chess you play on the Internet is a bit different to club chess. It's neither as intense nor as serious. Lots of very quick moves get played, sometimes with disastrous results. Sometimes they're just plain funny – whether they happen to you or to your opponent.

If FIDE developed a black box game recorder to capture comments used by Internet players whose games had just crashed, I think the word most frequently recorded would be, "Oops!"

These games aren't here for their excellence. With the exception of game 16 they're mostly brevities and that doesn't happen without somebody making an awful gaffe. I've certainly made my share but have the luxury of not including them here. (You can turn 16 into a brevity by using the double arrow to go to the end then clicking the back arrow till you reach move 48.)

All this is not to say you can't get a good game on the Internet, but with game times varying from thirty minutes down to less than a minute there's plenty of opportunity for error.

If you haven't played on the Net before there are a few handy hints you might like to consider.

1. Never miss a check, it might be mate   CLICK HERE
   
2. Attacking the enemy queen develops pieces with tempo   CLICK HERE
   
3. When threatened with mate, attack the queen. She'll probably retreat   CLICK HERE
   
4. Attacking the queen is a certain way to escape a pawn fork. Knight and bishop both survived   CLICK HERE
   
5. Development is for wimps. If you have black, counter attack early   CLICK HERE
   
6. Defence is for wimps, too!   CLICK HERE
   
7. When facing "Rook or mate" always protect the rook. It saves time later   CLICK HERE
   
8. If playing with the white bits get your opponent out of the book early. It will confuse him   CLICK HERE
   
9. The Sicilian Defence is a fighting, tactical defence that quickly wrests white's initiative.   CLICK HERE
   
10. Pawns are not dangerous until they reach the eighth rank   CLICK HERE
    
11. Beware chess players bearing gifts   CLICK HERE
    
12. It's safe to open as many lines as you like as long as your pieces stay back in defence   CLICK HERE
    
13. The best way to refute a gambit is to accept it   CLICK HERE
    
14. It is safe to ignore the enemy knight if he can't reach your passed pawn   CLICK HERE
    
15. Nimzowitsch said "passed pawns must be pushed" but assumed we would check the board first   CLICK HERE
    
16. When faced by a solid wall of pawns goose-stepping down the board, move your king to and fro   CLICK HERE