Greater Peoria Chess Foundation

News

• Chessbase News up to date news site. ChessBase is the maker of the top end chess database now available through the ICA.
• Russian Chess News. Big site for international chess news. This is the English version. You can also read it in Russian if you prefer.
• This Week in Chess - TWIC - Current chess news, databases, live events, etc. Weekly Chess news roundups. Number One independent chess news site for decades.
• Zwischenzug.org is a weekly computer generated news site that automatically accumulates chess news and information. This site was specifically created for the chess interests of GPCF students.

For Playing:

• chess24.com is primarily a chess news site. Great video coverage of major international events with live GrandMaster commentary. Premium members get the full benefit. Not extremely great for playing.
• Internet Chess Club is the most popular playing site on the Internet. It also provides plenty of ways to learn and improve your chess.
• lichess is an Open source, Ad-Free chess server that looks very very good. A ton of chess variants, a tactics trainer, opening trainer, and coordinate trainer. Free computer analysis on all games played, or games entered. Play blitz or standard games against members on the site. Play atomic, 3-check, horde, chess 960, King of the Hill, Antichess, or standard, live or correspondence. 100% free, no premium accounts to speak of. Best site for playing Internet chess at the club level by far, only downside is a smaller player pool.

The Basics:

• Chess for Novices covers rules, how to play and basic checkmates, tactics & strategy. A good place to start.
• Chess for Life is a successful web site built around starting & building chess clubs integrated into the school environment. Offers a curricula & tools for a school club. Guided by master Elliot Neff, it's another good place to start.
• Chess Kid(s) is chess.com's kid's entry level program. Problems are mixed level of difficulty and not focused on topics to be taught. It also wants to force you to use a browser of their choosing and stops entry to older browser versions. Not recommended.
• Kid's Guide to Playing Chess is a straight forward FAQ for anyone wanting to learn how to play chess, from How to Set Up the Chessboard to How a Chess Game Ends to links for Additional Resources, it provides everything you need to know to start enjoying the game. (Thanks Amelia!)

Advanced Learning:

• Chess.com - A new learning center from beginner to advanced. Covers all aspects of the game, divided into small sections devoted to single topics. Chess.com now offers a study plan with video lessons that include beginner to advanced player.
• Chess Magnate School - A great site for learning from beginner to Expert. Initial hours are rather tedious a the program's algorithms learn your knowledge & skill level to customize curricula. If you are still there after 3 or 4 hours of instruction wile the system assesses your ability to know where to begin, the pace picks up and becomes more interesting. Players that make it to Wizard are guarenteed to be strong chess players.
• Chessables a sophisticated learning site that teaches advanced skills via repetitions.A great site for learning repeatable skills such as Knight & Bishop checkmate. Helpful for opening memorization and endgame procedures.
• Dan Heisman Dan is an award-winning chess author and full-time chess instructor. He is a USCF National Master (NM). Dan gives a number of excellent instructional videos on all aspects of chess play.

For Problems:

• chesstempo.com - tactics or endgame problems, slightly better than the lichess.org or chess.com tactics trainer

Free Books:

• Project Gutenberg - Free chess books and other topics. The original project to save literature online.

Articles:

• Chessbase Articles covering chess events, news, etc, by top players.

Live GrandMaster Tournament Coverage:

• Chess24, while not really worth playing on, is the best site to watch tournaments of top players. Engine analysis of live games, occasional live coverage by a correspondent.
• Chessbomb is the bomb! Every single tournament using a DGT board is here, probably. Following a professional player? Use this to find tournaments they're in.
• Chessdom - The same as above. More pleasing visuals.

Chess on YouTube:

• Chess Club of St. Louis channel, FULL LENGTH lectures by Grandmasters FOR FREE. Honestly the best tool out there for those serious about learning. Look for "Beginner Breakdown" lectures for new or younger players.
• International Master John Bartholomew has a really unique way of explaining things. He plays bullet, blitz, standard, tactics, and simultaneous exhibitions while making comments. Fun to watch and very instructive.
• Chess24 Youtube channel - a few free videos by top players that are instructive, as well as recordings of tournament coverage that is interesting.
• Grandmaster Niclas Huscenbeth of Germany shows games and endgame studies - Interesting for players who want to brush up on endgames. Some videos in german.
• Grandmaster Simon Williams plays blitz games (typically against b titled players) and gives analysis afterwards.
• The Backyard Professor youtube channel Mostly effective for beginners who want to learn about openings -- Free lecture-length videos by a player of 1900 strength
• American National Masters - lecture length videos on a variety of topics. Updates infrequent.
• International Master Greg Shahade plays blitz. Not extremely effective for learning, but entertaining.

Chess on Twitch:

• Twitch Chess Directory Want to ask strong players questions as they play chess? Want to watch someone play chess live, with commentary? Twitch.tv is a service typically used by people who stream video games, but chess players have been using it to have "live shows" regarding chess. Use this link to find out who's streaming chess at any given moment. Favorite channels of mine:
• National Master John Chernoff plays variants, blitz, and simultaneous exhibitions while giving comments. Just ask, and he'll go over one of your games and give tips - I've had at least two games analysed on stream by him; it was extremely helpful.
• chess.com twitch channel, enjoy chess.com live events without annoying comments from chatters on chess.com
• Internet Chess Club - Like watching top players, but don't want to pay 75$/year for ICC? This is the next best thing - watch live events from the Internet Chess Club.

Create an account on twitch.tv to get email notifications when your favorite streamers go live.

Games by Top Players:

• Chess Games an Online chess database, nearly every top game ever played in an international tournament. Reading a chess book, and don't want to break out a board to look at game? You can most likely find it on this website. I found games that a random Scottish expert played in 2014 when I went on a search - if a game was submitted to a TD, or broadcasted somewhere, it's probably here.

Chess Playing & Database Software:

• Chessbase is the top rated chess database. ChessBase is a personal, stand-alone chess database that has become the standard throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. While good it is also the most expensive, costing several hundred dollars.
• Peshka Chess Assistant is a tool for managing chess games and databases, playing chess through the Internet, analyzing games, or playing chess against the computer. Chess Assistant costs about half of Chessbase.
• Chessbase Reader 2017 is a free version of Chessbase. Some options have been eliminated (can't save etc) but if you just want to view games in either PGN or Chessbase format, it works great.
• SCID the original open source program - set a up a free chess database - analyze your own games, see percentage breakdowns of how effective your openings were, enter variations, analyze games with an engine. You can use this to look at databases of top players, look at openings, etc. Uses PGN files. Takes a little while to learn, though.
• ChessX A fork of SCID, perhaps a little easier to use. ChessX gives you everything you expect from a professional chess database.
• ChessPad by WLMSoftware Another fork of SCID. A feature-rich chess game PGN viewer and editor to create and manage chess databases with search function and multi-game tools.

Discussion Forums:

• USCF discussion forums, everything chess. including US Tournament rules and conditions.
• Reddit's /r/chess Discussion board for chess, users post problems, games of their own to be analyzed, and current events.
• Chess Pub - a chess discussion forum for ChessPublishing.com, an opening theory site.

Miscellaneous:

• Car Games, a blog page that covers the rules, strategies and tactics, the mathematics and psychology of the game, and lots of links to other websites for practicing and reading about chess