Playing online chess

The first thing to know is that Red Hot Pawn Chess is first and foremost a correspondence chess site. This means that when you make a move in a game, it is unlikely that your opponent will reply to your move immediately. Typically, you will make a move and then wait minutes, hours, or, depending on your opponent, sometimes even days for your next move.

When your opponent does move, you will be notified by email, or, if you choose not to receive email notifications, you will see a list of games awaiting your move each time you visit Red Hot Pawn Chess

Whilst real-time chess is suited to fast, blitz games, Red Hot Pawn Chess allows you to make moves when you are ready; games don't have to be finished in one sitting. It is for players who would rather have several games running concurrently and dip in and out of the site throughout the day.

Occasionally this does happen. If this happens within three moves (remember moves are counted in pairs) you can simply delete the game. If this happens after three moves you will have the option to claim victory once the game's time limit has been reached (time-out limits are chosen by the user before the game and vary from 3 days up to 21 days ? some tournament games even have 1 day timeouts!

There are a number of ways to start games ? but the easiest way is to start an open invite. These are usually accepted quite quickly, so this is a good way to get a number of games started rapidly. Alternatively, you can also just click the name of any user on this site and challenge them directly.

The best way to discover what RHP can offer you is to start up a game or three, visit the forums, and simply have a general snoop round. Just some of the features that are available include :

• Being part of a large, vibrant chess-focused community.
• Using arguably the best, most attractive and most functional interface for playing chess on the internet.
• A chance to play against any level of ability you desire ? there are international class players, and then there are others at the opposite end of the spectrum who are just starting to learn the basics of the game, and many, many in between
• Red Hot Pawn Chess records your rating as you win and lose games. A ladder shows your current ranking in relation to everyone else.
• Send a message to your opponent along with your move, so you can chat as you play
• Write strategy notes to yourself, review the entire game's history, and analyze the board as you play.
• Have games emailed to you in PGN format
• Participate in tournaments
• Join a clan and be part of a team doing battle with other teams
• Study any public game from any other player - games can be reviewed online, or the PGN can be exported for offline analysis.