Playing chess online in 2021

The best sites to play chess online for free without registration and learn to play in 2021

10 websites to play chess online and exercise the mind

Chess is an excellent mental training for both children and adults. This game provides us with prudence, caution and teaches us to be foresighted. However, the benefits of playing chess are much broader, especially for children, where playing chess on a regular basis helps to significantly increase IQ levels.

If you like to play chess and train your brain, you have at your disposal numerous platforms, both apps and websites, where you can do it. To guide you, we have created this selection of platforms to play chess online for the whole family with which you will enjoy the pleasure of this strategy game

Where to play online chess : The websites

1. Chess.com

With this great website (Chess.com is the first chess website in the world with 50.000.000 players !), you can enjoy unlimited free chess games, as well as improve your level with more than 50,000 tactical puzzles, interactive lessons and videos.

You will be able to try the different chess variants it offers, such as double chess, hexagonal or blind chess, among many others. In addition, you can join the large community of chess players that compose it and find daily articles from the best authors and trainers.

You can also play chess online and with your computer through its web page Chess.com, where you will also find the lessons and current articles related to the exciting world of chess.

2. Chess24.com

With Chess24 you can play chess online and improve your chess, playing with any user in the world.

The games are automatically saved on your device so you can analyze or review them whenever you want. It includes interactive video lessons to improve your level, as well as a tactics trainer adjusted to your level. In addition, you can follow the most important chess tournaments in real time.

3. Lichess.org

Lichess is a totally free chess server, created with open source, free and without advertising.

Built for the love of chess, the website allows you to play classical, bullet, rapid, correspondence or tournament chess. You can practice with chess puzzles and the large number of chess variants available, both online and offline.

All functions are available completely free of charge.

Where to play online chess : Apps Android and Apple IOS

4. SimpleChess

SimpleChess is an application to play chess online against real opponents. You can access in guest mode completely free of charge, or register to access additional features.

You can choose between three game types: standard, chess960 and battle. You can define game criteria such as cadence and strength of your opponent. Once you have chosen the game mode, it is as simple as starting to enjoy the game.

You can also access the chessonline.com website to play online with other players. There you will also find interesting lessons on tactics and strategies to become a better player.

5. Play Magnus

With this app, recommended by the American Chess Foundation First Move, you can test your skills by playing against the World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen.

An important part of the app is that Magnus teaches you how to become a better chess player. After explaining the basics to beginners, including how chess is played or how the pieces move, he offers tips, tactics tricks and strategies to help you on your way.

Plus, if you join the Play Live challenge you can have the opportunity to play against Magnus live.

6. Play Chess

The world's largest chess server, where you can find 20,000 chess fans every day.

You will quickly find opponents of your level or, if you prefer, you can follow grandmaster games and the main tournaments in the world.

You can also play chess online through their website playchess.com, where you will also find training videos, tactics and much more information.

7. Chess By Post

This application allows you to play chess remotely, but not in real time. Just like chess used to be played in the old days, by correspondence.

The application keeps track of your activity level to always match you with players with a similar skill to yours. Thus, you can challenge your friends for friendly games or play matched games against random opponents with similar skill level.

You can play as many simultaneous games as you want.

8. Real Chess

This application offers you the classic game of chess, but with a new dimension. You will be able to feel all the beauty of interacting with virtual chess thanks to its advanced 3D graphics.

It has more than one million registered users worldwide and allows you to talk to your opponents while playing online.

If you play against the device you will find 2,400 levels of difficulty. In addition, it offers tips for beginners, along with highlighting of possible moves.

9. Sparkchess

A chess game that puts fun at the forefront. With a selection of boards, computer opponents and online games, it offers a chess game that is as accessible to experts as it is to beginners and even children.

With a simple interface, you can choose between different boards: 2D, 3D and an impressive fantasy board. In addition, you can learn chess with more than 20 lessons, 70 puzzles and the trainer mode with which the application will explain, in a simple way, why a move is good or not.

We can also find this application in the App Store, although in this case it has a price of 5,99 $. We can also play chess online from its website sparkchess.com.

10. Chess for kids

A chess application specially designed for children. With it they will learn everything from the basic rules to the most advanced strategies, as well as stimulating their deductive reasoning.

The youngest of the house will be able to improve their game with fun videos, as well as hone their skills with thousands of complicated puzzles.

They will be able to play chess with children from all over the world in a completely safe way. In addition, they can chat and make friends, always with explicit parental consent.

They can also learn and play online from its web version, by accessing chesskid.com.

Extra : 11. Chess King

If you want to learn how to play chess, this application offers you a collection of courses including tactics, strategy, openings, middlegame and endgame.

All courses are divided into levels, from beginner to club player levels and even for true professionals.

With the help of this application you will be able to perfect your chess skills and learn new tactics, as well as consolidate your acquired knowledge in practice.

Vidéo - Chess.com: Play, Learn, And Share

The first online classical chess tournament in the history of chess is organized from Sitges

In this time of confinement, online chess is living one of its best moments, with a multitude of tournaments and millions of games being played all over the world. The use of the Internet helps to maintain the rules of social distancing that, in normal conditions, would be practically impossible to apply in this sport. However, all these tournaments have one thing in common: they are rapid game tournaments that are played and finished in a morning or afternoon. The reason for this is clear: if they were played at a slow pace (as is usual in the face-to-face tournaments), the possibility of players cheating would multiply exponentially.

Even so, the organizers of the Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival (the highest level and most relevant open tournament of all those held in Spain) thought it was worth trying to break a taboo and, with the help of the American portal Chess. com (the main and most prestigious online chess platform in the sector), they have decided to organize the first online tournament at a classical pace in the history of chess, a tournament whose benefits will be given entirely to the Hospital-Residencia Sant Camil, near Sitges, to collaborate with the fight against Covid-19.

Thus, this Friday, April 17, an event will begin that will last 10 days, will distribute a prize purse of 6,000 € in addition to several other non-monetary prizes, and will telematically confront some 300 players from more than 60 countries around the world. The tournament has already generated debate in the chess world and has attracted the attention of several international media, since there is great expectation to see how a competition that represents the first step towards the dispute in the future - perhaps near - of classic online chess tournaments that can be worth to obtain ELO points, which are the ones that determine the classification of the players in the world chess ranking.

Francesc Gonzalez, tournament director, admits that the biggest challenge they will face will be precisely the control of cheating. "It will be very difficult to be able to control 100% of the games - he admits -, but we are confident that the control mechanisms established will guarantee that the best players will be the ones who end up in the top positions of the tournament and, therefore, winning the prizes". Fran Dubón, director of the Hotel Sunway Playa Golf & Spa (organizer of the tournament together with the Penya d'Escacs del Casino Prado), explains that "Chess.com has a very reliable algorithm for detecting players who do not respect fair play. In addition, there will be video surveillance of the players by the referee team, through videoconferencing applications that in this time of confinement are becoming essential, so it will be very risky to try to beat the opponent with cheating. Moreover, if the referees decide to withdraw a player from the tournament, the reason for this decision will be notorious, and I am convinced that no one will want to earn a reputation for cheating, and more so in a charity event, in which most players - except the professionals - will play for fun and without great expectations, and in which they will also not put their ELO points at risk ".

Regardless of how the experience ends, what is clear is that Sitges is once again on the lips of the whole chess world, just 4 months after it was already on the lips of the whole chess world because of an incident between an Iranian and an Israeli player during the dispute precisely of the Sunway Sitges tournament (presential), which led to Iran's ban on its best chess players to participate in the World Rapid Championship held in late 2019, and the resignation of the best Iranian chess player to represent his country ever again.

Play chess against the computer

Nowadays we have a great variety of pages to play chess against the computer. Here are some of the most common ones, although the list could be much longer. All the links we have selected do not require any kind of registration to access the basic game and offer you the immediate possibility to play chess against the machine. Get to know these options to play and decide which one best suits your preferences.

Playing chess against the computer in Lichess

Our first option is the development of lichess.com that offers us free of charge multiple game possibilities. There, among many other things, we can play directly against the computer from the initial game selection screen.

Lichess was founded in 2010 by the French programmer Thibault Duplessis. It is based on open source code and run by a non-profit entity. Anyone can play without registration although, if you wish, you can also create an account to view your progress. Lichess has no advertising and is funded through voluntary donations that do not give access to special privileges.

In February 2015 an app appeared for android and IOS that has contributed to further popularize this gaming platform.

Play chess against the computer at Chess.com

Another great opportunity to play chess online is offered by the Chess.com platform.

In this case it is a freemium option, that is, you will be able to play freely even without registration but, unlike Lichess, if you want to access all the options you will have to pay a fee. The creation of the basic account is free and allows you to play chess in different modes and time controls.

Play chess against the computer at Chess24

One more option to play chess online against the computer is also available at the chess24 portal, which has become famous in recent times for its tournament broadcasts and chatters.

Playing chess against the computer for children Chesskid.com

Finally, we would like to recommend for the little ones a portal set to encourage children to start playing chess.

Playing chess against the machine

The dream that a mechanical device could beat a human being was for centuries part of the human imagination. Today that dream has become a reality and any smartphone can beat the best player in the world. However, reaching this point has not meant a decline in the general interest in the game.

The development of artificial intelligence applied to chess has meant a stimulus for the practice of amateurs who find a new tool to develop their passion.

The computer has now become one of the main allies of any chess fan. Thanks to programs like Stockfish, Fritz, Komodo or any other of the most recent ones, we have at all times a high level rival ready to show us our mistakes. In this way our possibilities to progress increase, if we know how to use it with skill.

Beyond the online chess game

But it is possible that the experience of playing chess against the computer is just a starting point. If you now wish to find human opponents you can access the same platforms that we have recommended or, better yet, contact us if you think that our club can be a good alternative for your chess development.

We wish you great progress and good online chess games!