English Chess Forum

I wondered if anyone knew the best places for young children to play chess online. I run chess clubs in several schools and we have about 600 children who might benefit from a chance to play each other during weekends/holidays. I am ideally looking for:

1) A site where we could have our own permanent private room/channel which I would be prepared to pay a fee for
2) Free for the children
3) If in an open channel it would need to be strongly moderated and controlled
4) Preferably easy to explain the set-up/interface download/interface use

Ideas greatly appreciated...

Nick,

Whatever it is, it needs to avoid to use of high level TCP/IP ports which playchess.com and chesscube.com both use. The management of school firewalls in general appears to be outsourced to outfits who charge a fortune to remove a block on any TCP/IP port as was found out a few years ago for playchess.com

I've not port scanned ICC as yet but you need a service that only uses port 80 and port 443.

_________________
Chess Images: http://johnupham.smugmug.com/Chess
IT Manager for the British Chess Magazine: http://www.britishchessmagazine.co.uk
Twitter: @jeupham
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.upham

There is some potentially useful stuff here;

http://www.chesskids.com/play04.shtml

but you could also set up your own playing site just for the kids;

http://www.qlinkuk.com//mkgichessclub/login.php

_________________
Adam Raoof
FIDE International Organiser and Arbiter
Hampstead International Congresses - http://www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.chessengland.com

Thanks for both those replies.

Adam said:



Interested but how does this work??

It's an open-source chess playing server with a pure Web interface. You can install it and configure it to your needs, as in

http://www.chessdual.com/login.php

but for more technical advice I will have to refer you to a colleague - send me an email if you want to talk to him, as he can arrange hosting and will probably help you set this up.

_________________
Adam Raoof
FIDE International Organiser and Arbiter
Hampstead International Congresses - http://www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.chessengland.com

An ECF board experienced in how junior chess works, rather than status quo driven, might see an opportunity here.

Adam,

What time controls does this server allow? Blitz, RapidPlay, Bullet?

John

_________________
Chess Images: http://johnupham.smugmug.com/Chess
IT Manager for the British Chess Magazine: http://www.britishchessmagazine.co.uk
Twitter: @jeupham
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.upham

None of the above; this is more like Chessworld.net than the ICC!

_________________
Adam Raoof
FIDE International Organiser and Arbiter
Hampstead International Congresses - http://www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.chessengland.com

OK, I don't think this will be too attractive for children but maybe I am wrong.

_________________
Chess Images: http://johnupham.smugmug.com/Chess
IT Manager for the British Chess Magazine: http://www.britishchessmagazine.co.uk
Twitter: @jeupham
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.upham

My 6-year-old son - who's still a beginner - actually likes playing chess on this server a lot, as he doesn't have the stress of a clock ticking down.

_________________
Michael Bennett
Hendon Chess Club: http://www.hendonchessclub.com
Golders Green Rapidplays: http://www.goldersgreenchess.blogspot.com

_________________
Adam Raoof
FIDE International Organiser and Arbiter
Hampstead International Congresses - http://www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.chessengland.com

Yes, he has his moments, but he's still a beginner

_________________
Michael Bennett
Hendon Chess Club: http://www.hendonchessclub.com
Golders Green Rapidplays: http://www.goldersgreenchess.blogspot.com

Hi Michael,

"My 6-year-old son - who's still a beginner."

In this day with GM's popping up as young as 12 you could say
he is a late starter.

I wish net chess was available when my two were young.
I could not get them away from blasting things on the Commondore or the Atari.

_________________
http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogindex.php
http://www.chessedinburgh.co.uk/chandler.php

Yes, I'm thankful that PCs only really turned up around the end of my teenage years. I spent many happy hours curled up with a good chess book instead.

_________________
Michael Bennett
Hendon Chess Club: http://www.hendonchessclub.com
Golders Green Rapidplays: http://www.goldersgreenchess.blogspot.com