Links
This link points a site with the best online chess club in the world. Ratings are adjusted to fit normal levels, so it is a good place to judge your strength. For isolated players like myself, this is the best place to find serious competition. Free trial accounts are available.
The United States Chess Federation is the organizing body for tournaments in the United States. 80,000 members belong to U.S. Chess and the organization provides information about tournaments and special offers on books. In addition, Chess Life is published by this organization, which is a magazine that tells about new events in the chess world.
This server, like the internet chess club, allows players to play rated games against each other. The problem here is that ratings are not normalized to reflect accurate strengths, so the rating you receive on these servers is not reliable (I have seen players rated 2300 on these servers that were not even 1900 level in actual strength). This is not a problem for beginning players, however, for many beginners may actually want to play weaker players to hone their skills.
All prospective tournament players should be familiar with this site. It is the homepage of the governing body of international chess, FIDE. On the site is ratings information and profiles of the great players, as well as news of the most recent chess events.
This site, although created by Mindscape to promote their Chessmaster product, is actually a very useful chess tool. It allows players to download free software and to chat about chess online, and to learn more about the game. In addition, the Chessmaster product is useful, but perhaps a bit expensive for most beginning chess players to invest in.
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