Checkmate!!!. Review on Gameknot

Being a chess crazy boy, I was always looking for a reliable website where I can spend hours playing my favourite game. I tried chessclub and kasparov chess. They are good websites, no doubt. But I used to face some troubles. Like internet connectivity is not that good in India, we frequently get disconnected. Also if you don't have UPS, power failures are often. Or sometimes when you are alone at home and some one comes! In all 3 situations, game was lost.

The solution came in form of Gameknot. This website uses turn based method for playing chess . That is one makes his move and when the opponent comes he makes his move. So one don't need to worry about other things. He can move whenever he has time. The time limit for one move varies from 1 day to 14 days. But still, if both players are online at same time, they can make as many moves a day they want!

Some of best features of this website are:-

No. Of Games:-

You can play up to 20 games at a time for FREE

Rating

An excellent rating system is adopted for every player and it motivates one to do better.

Choice of Game

You can start a new game and choose players from which rating can join the game,and what will be the time limit per move.

You can join the available games,provided you satisfy the rating criteria set by the challenger, and the time limit suits you.

Too busy to come online these days? No Problem!!!

If you are going out or due to some times can't access internet, you can postpone your games. A free player can postpone his games for up to 80 days per year!!!!

Feeling competitive?

Every 2 months a tournament begins.If you are a serious player,this is the way to go,there are three sections in every tournament. Expert, intermediate and casual chess depending on rating.all participants are divided into groups of 4 or 5 players and winner of each group goes to next round and so on.However tournament time limit is 2 days per move, except for final round which has limit of 4 days per move.

If tournaments sound tougher to you, you can fight in mini tournaments, which are run by members themselves and have some numbers of players.

Play as a Team

You and your friends can play as a TEAM and compete with other teams.Or you can apply to join an existing team.

Make friends while playing

While playing you can send message to the opponents. (However I won't recommend this as this affects the concentration,and have cost me few games).

Where I went wrong?

You can view your old games and download them in pgn format. Almost all chess softwares support pgn.Hence you can review the mistakes you made, the strategies specific players use, and can see which type of attack is best for you.

Profile

On your profile page you can see your rating, your user stats,average rating of your opponents. Highest rated player you have defeated, lowest rated player who has defeated you, all on one page!Also a graph shows your performance since last 1 year!

That's not all!!!

You can have a profile, including a picture!

You can make your friends' and ignore users who bug you list

Don't forget to challenge me once you join gameknot!!!!

https://gameknot.com/stats.pl?chaplin