Online: the new way to play chess

Now all you need to play chess is a gadget and a reliable internet connection. You can play with anyone - even with someone halfway around the world. Just open your computer or gadget, visit an online chess site like chess.com and Facebook, sign up or log in and you can play chess any time of the day or night.

With the advent of the internet, playing chess has never been convenient as before. You can play chess when and where you want. While enjoying your favorite coffee or drink, you can take out your laptop, tablet or cellphone and play chess. Wherever you are - in the safety of your house, in your bedroom, under a tree, in a parking lot or wherever there is an internet connection you can enjoy and play chess.

Your opponent is no longer confined to who is available across the street in your neighborhood or at your local chess club. Chess players can challenge absolutely anyone who is at the far end of the planet on a different time zone. With a worldwide number of available competition, chess has reached a very high level of play.

Technology has changed not only our daily life but our “chess life” as well. With technology, the chessboard has literally become “flat” and within reach. All players, whether beginners or masters have a venue to interact, discuss issues, gain friends and best of all play chess.  Playing online is slowly becoming the norm. With the internet, busy professionals who love chess can play during their free time.  They need not visit a chess plaza and have someone to play chess with at the other end of the board.  There is no need to meet your opponent face to face.  Without the need for traveling, there would be more time to play chess.

Technology has indeed changed the way we play chess.  Perhaps, the future of chess is online. There may come a time that the “physical chess set or chessboard” would be rendered extinct.  Chess - as future generations may know it - is no longer the “board” where there are “carved chess pieces” but the “icons” on the iPad or “chess symbols” in a computer. Perhaps in the very near future, World Championship Chess would be played online where the challenger is somewhere in India and the reigning champion is in Norway. In fact, at this time chess games are viewed in chess sites such as chessbomb.com on computers and other gadgets.

If we talk of a chess game, we usually visualize two chess players across the table glued on their respective chairs. On top of the table is a chessboard and a clock. With their minds focused on maneuvering their sixteen chess pieces, spectators only see the occasional movement of the player.  Today, many see chess as a game played with the use of modern gadgets. A chessboard is no longer the necessary tool to play the game but a gadget and a very reliable internet connection. 

But of course, to be able to physically touch the chess pieces and face your opponent across the board offers a much realistic chess experience compared to playing online.  In playing online chess, psychological factors that affect a chess player is reduced to a minimum. However, with the continuing advancement of technology, online would definitely be the new way to play chess.