Just for Fun

This is my catch-all category of various interesting or amusing sites.

Chess Curiosities
Tim Krabbe’s excellent site is definitely amusing and one of the best sites on the web.

Bill Wall’s Chess Page by Bill Wall
Links to all of Wall’s articles and lists, several quite humorous and most quite helpful and informative. I especially appreciate his impressively inclusive and seemingly exhaustive lists of all things related to chess. See especially Movies with Chess Scenes, Fiction Literature and chess, Fischer’s Early Chess Games (very reassuring), Famous People Who Play Chess, and many more fascinating lists.

Tales of 1001 Knights
A big site with lots of links and content.

Chess Humor and Crosswords
A collection of humorous stories and articles on chess themes.

Kingpin
Part of the Chess Center group of sites, this one has some fun games and other entertainments.

Alexandra Kosteniuk
The home page of the world’s most lovely chessplayer.

Chandler Cornered: The Chess Column that Is Slightly Different
Another British chess humor web site. This one has lots of amusing anecdotes and articles.

The Yermo Diary
Just when you thought this old blog was off the web, we bring it back to life from the archives! Opinionated and occasionally vindictive criticism from the American GM. It would be a shame to let all this great writing disappear forever, though.

Deep Blue Match (from IBM)
The official site of the famous Kasparov-Deep Blue debacle.

Mr. T versus Deep Blue
This four page comic story is laugh-out-loud funny and worth wading through the pop-up ads to read.

My Obsession with Chess by Scott McCloud
An interesting and introspective chess cartoon to scroll through.

Female Chess Players by Jo Heesen
Click the button for new pictures and quotes to accompany.

Ed’s Ever-Growing Chess Page
A long scroll down brings you through many interesting links and thoughts.

Bughouse.net
A site devoted to the four-player variant called “bug-house,” where pieces removed from one board can come to life again on the other board. Wild and wooly stuff.

The Chicken Factor
A humorous online calculator helps to determine how hard players tried to avoid the draw.

Measure Your Chess Aggressiveness
A humorous self-assessment of your chess style.

Daniel King on BBC Radio
A radio program on the history of the World Championship.

Chess.net
Something is going on here, but it is still not fully formed.

Lovechess
WARNING: NOT FOR CHILDREN…. An adult version of chess that is worth a look, if only for a laugh.

A Chess Addict by Bill Wall
You know you are a chess addict when….

Sam Sloan’s Chess Page
Lots of articles about ongoing controversies and chess-related issues. Very opinionated commentary, but some interesting stories.

Chess on Stamps
For those into stamp collecting or just for those who derive aesthetic pleasure from graphical art on chess themes, this is an interesting site. There are actually not as many images as one might have expected, but the collection is presented as fairly inclusive. Some useful links for the serious collector also. See also Jon Edwards on the same topic.

Medieval and Renaissance Games and Gaming Equipment
Contains annotated links to images of cards, chess pieces, and the other paraphranalia of play long ago.

Chess in the Cinema
A site featuring some great images of chess in movies. But a better listing can be found from Bill Wall.

Chess Cartoons by Diaz
Very colorful diversions.

Topical Chess Postcards by Gerhard Radosztics
Very nice and amusing images from historical postcards, organized by theme.

Chess Composition Books
Reprints of public domain books featuring composed chess problems. In zipped PDF format.

A Few Good Books
On chess and literature.

Connections between Music and Chess by John Greschak
A comprehensive annotated bibliography to all things that connect chess to music, focusing on musical compositions inspired by the game.