Queen Alice
This used to be one of my favorite sites, but I quit several years ago because the site was having a lot of problems; the server went down and I had a couple of tournaments that got wiped out and the site owner appeared to have abandoned the site. Also, there was almost no forum activity although they used to be quite active.
A peek at the site today showed the site owner had last posted back in June 2018 that the data center had experienced a power failure that took the server off line for about 8 hours. Also, the posts on feature requests and help and support go unanswered by the owner. The other discussion forums remain pretty much dead.
Three tournaments were available for my class (Master), but they were nowhere near being filled and who knows how long they have been waiting? There were a dozen open invites where players were awaiting the acceptance of their challenge.
Statistically a total of 26 members were on the site within the last 5 minutes, 586 members were within the last 24 hours and 826 members within the last week. Apparently the site is fairly active (but only for lower rated players) despite the absentee ownership. Queen Alice is free.
Chessworld
This was my all time favorite site and I had a lot of fun playing there. The forum discussions were especially friendly and lively. It's owned by British player Tryfon Gavriel, aka Kingscrusher on Youtube.
You can play free, but the site's resources are extremely limited to free members. To unlock all the site's feature, of which there are many, costs a very reasonable $28.50 per year.
I quit playing there several years ago when after renewing my membership with a credit card we checked into a hotel in New Jersey only to find my credit card had been locked by the card company and we had to pay cash for the room.
A call to the credit card company revealed that my credit card had been used in Germany to purchase some science fiction video games and some sex toys. Fortunately, I didn't have to pay for them, but had to be issued a new credit card. Obvioulsy the site had some security issues...at least at that time. If joining Chessworld I would suggest using Pay Pal, or if your credit card is like mine, there is a feature that allows you to generate a temporary number with a spending limit and a two month expiration date.
Plenty of games and tournaments are available, but forum activity seems nowhere near as great as it was when I was active several years ago. This is still a good site at a reasonable cost for serious CC players who are interested in a ton of features such as: analysis boards and other in-game tools, rating graphs and detailed opening stats, in-game chat and message goodies, All-Play-All tournaments, Knockouts, Teams, Simuls and Pyramids, a variety of time limits, puzzles, tips, videos and annotations and more.
On Chessworld most people play under a user name and in one particularly amusing incident I had an opponent who was absolutely convinced that I was the well known U.S. correspondence player J. Franklin Campbell.
Chesshere
Quarterly membership is $8.00 per month and yearly membership is $49.00. Membership entitles you to: unlimited number of games, protection against lags and problematic players, invitations priority where your invitations will be shown first, no advertisements, faster response, 80 (!) vacation days per year, the ability to create a team, the ability to edit your chessboard, real time and correspondence tournaments and the download of training software.
Forum activity is practically nil and playing a limited number of real time and correspondence chess requires registration.
Years ago there was an imposter posing as Iranian GM Amir Bagheri on Chessword who got kicked off the site. About the same time there was also a forum that was supposedly Bagheri's, but I was suspicious. Somehow this imposter got involved with Chesshere and I remember posting a few comments on their forum when I received an e-mail from "Bagheri" asking me to become involved with the site as a moderator. It was painfully obvious that "Bagheri" wasn't the real GM! He was eventually kicked off the site.
Chess Hotel
A real time site where you can play as either a guest or create a free account. The site offers both regular chess in real time at a various time limits as well as Fischer Random (chess960). If you want to register you will receive a free account that keeps your games and statistics. My experience there was that the players were mostly beginners. Generally speaking, I would say this is a good site for lower rated players.
Instant Chess
If you want a quick game against a random opponent as a guest, usually lower rated, this is a good site for a quick couple of games, but they have a limit on how many games you can play per day.
You can sign up for a free account with either e-mail or Facebook. Subscriptions for unlimited play is $7.99 per month which like Chesshere seems pricey. Their Facebook page shows almost 200,000 likes and over 200,000 followers.
Playchess
If I were serious about chess this is THE site. I haven't played there for a long time even though it's a sign on option on my Fritz program.
You can play instantly as a guest without registration and you can test the site (with some restrictions) free for 90 days; after that the cost is $39.60 per year or you can pay $3.96 per month. Full membership offers too many features to mention and costs $56.63 per year which can also be be paid monthly.
CCLA
For US and Canadian players I can highly recommend the Correspondence Chess League of America.
This was the first postal chess site I joined as a kid nearly 60 years ago!! I was only a member for a couple of years before switching over to Chess Review, but rejoined in 2001 for 2-3 years and played by post card. I don't think they were offering server play yet, so in about 2004 I switched to server play.
The CCLA offers a large selection of server, email and postal chess tournaments and publish the award-winning, quarterly Chess Correspondent magazine.
The CCLA traditionally has a low drop-out rate so you are able to play most of your games to completion. I might add that while there I experienced very few games where I suspected engine use. It appeared that many of the players were also OTB players and because of that, their correspondence ratings were strikingly close to their correspondence ratings.
Regular CCLA membership is open to residents of the United States, its possessions and Canada. Residents of other countries may become associate members and participate in server and email events, but may not vote, hold elected office, enter CCLA postal events or enter ICCF events through CCLA.
A printed Chess Correspondent is included in regular membership dues, only available to residents of the U.S., its possessions and Canada. An electronic version of the magazine (sent as .pdf Adobe Acrobat email attachment) at a reduced rate and available to everyone. Dues start as low as $12 per year.
They offer many tournaments at a nominal entry fee per event. Sample of The Chess Correspondent.
Red Hot Pawn
You can sign up for free. I used this site to play a few casual against friends about 15 years ago and the site appears to have changed drastically since those days.
It appears that the site is very active and if you are interested in forum discussions on everything...chess, politics, religion, sports or just about anything else, it's an interesting place.
I remember one interesting situation that came up at work back in those days. The entire engineering department was struggling with a thorny math problem when I took a chance and posted the problem in the Science forum. Within 15 minutes somebody posted the answer, complete with explanation!
Lechenicher SchachServer
This German site is owned by Dr. Ortwin Paetzold and is FREE although they do offer a Premium Membership for about $20 per year.
Premium membership offers 10 additional games, the possibility to move to further membership levels with even more games, adding notes to games invisible to others, using conditional moves, access to the site even if the maximum number of players is reached (I've never had this happen).
Tournament offerings cover a full range: 40days/10 moves time control, rapid tournaments with a 10days+1day/move control, Open Tournaments without rating restrictions and two-game matches. These are engine assisted tournaments!
Be aware that in these events where everybody is using an engine it will be almost impossible to gain (or lose!) any rating points. Since joining about 10 years ago my score is +73 -63 =203 and my rating has not fluctuated more than a few points.
I joined its predecessor, IECG which conducted email tournaments, at my CCLA rating. Unaware that IECG had no rules against engine use in my first tournament I scored two draws in six games and lost 100 rating points!
If you do NOT want to play using engines then they also offer no engine tournaments and Chess-960 events. Forum activity is nil except for asking questions.
USCF
I have been a Life Member of the USCF since the days when a life membership costs $100. In 1969, Al Horowitz sold his wonderful Chess Review to the USCF and they took over correspondence chess.
Sometime around the early 1990s I entered a couple of postal tournaments, but by that time engine use had proliferated to the point that correspondence chess was ruined.
At some point I became convinced something was wrong and took a look at my games with Chessmaster and confirmed that at least 10 opponents were clearly using the program! Disgusted, I resigned all my games and never played there again.
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