24 January 2015

Chess.com, Comments on Chess960

The previous post, FICS / ICC / Lichess, Comments on Chess960, discussed the last of the Crossboard (Live) Chess960 servers listed on the right. With this post I'll tackle the Correspondence (Turnbased) Chess960 servers.

I'm sure that nearly everyone is familiar with Chess.com, a site that has been discussed many times on this blog; earlier posts can be found under Label Chess.com, also listed to the right of every page. Along with correspondence play, the site has the most active chess960 forum on the web: Chess960 and Other Variants. The only function missing from the site is live chess960 play, an anomaly mentioned frequently in the forum.

[There is another chess960 forum on Chessgames.com which was active during the early days of chess960, a time when the topic was more controversial, but the frequency of posts has declined steadily over the last few years. I once used it as the subject of another post, Chess960 FAQ (June 2009).]

The most important chess960 forum post on Chess.com is undoubtedly Chess960 101. Along with pointers on aspects of chess960 that might be useful to the newcomer, it has links to Erik (aka Mr. Chess.com) Allebest's introduction to the new chess960 function (June 2009?) and to IM David Pruess's followup essay on tips to play successfully.

I have many other links to the Chess.com forum that are worth referencing. Unfortunately, as mentioned in a recent post on my main blog -- Blog Maintenance -- I'm currently overhauling my bookmarks. A discussion of those resources will have to wait for another day.

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