Player homepage

The player homepage is your central of command, the natural starting point of your visits to PlayChess.

You should always login to your player homepage - even if you don't want to make moves. Many pages reveal more information when viewed by a registered player.

Overview

The player homepage is a dynamic page, its content depends very much on

• your number of running tournaments
• your membership state
• your experience
• current news
• random (tips and advertisements)

Below, the elements of this page are explained in detail.

News

Announcements for registered players: Technical improvements, bug fixes, maintenance and new features. You should always check this section for new developments. You can find past announcements under Service -> News.

You are to move

This table contains those of your games where you are to move. The columns show both opponents (one of them is you), the number of moves played so far, the time on your clock, how long ago your opponent made his move and a link to the game itself.

Click on the game if you want to make a move.

Tips and ads

Useful tips and tricks, mixed with chess-related advertisements. Reading these tips (they change with every visit to your player homepage) can improve your PlayChess experience. Guest players can click on the advertisements to support the site. Paying members, however, see only the tips and tricks; advertisements are suppressed for them.

Opponents are to move

In these games your opponent is to move. You need not do anything with these games. Just wait until your opponent moves, the game will then appear in the You are to move table. The columns are the same as above. However, you see your opponent's clock here; as soon as this clock reachs "0d 00:00", you will have won that game by time. Similarily, you can see how much time has passed since your last move.

Recommended steps

These recommendations help you to make maximum use of PlayChess. The system tries to offer the most logical steps for you. These could be

• change your password if you still use the preliminary password
• start a tournament if you don't already play any tournaments

You need not follow these recommendations, but you should consider them carefully.

Player profile

These links lead to your profile pages. Here you can see and adjust your personal settings.

• Player info. Your player information page as seen by another member or visitor.
• Preferences. Here, you can adjust the behaviour and the appearance of PlayChess: Email notifications, board orientation, colour scheme, preferred tournament types and more. Most of these options are reserved for paying members.
• Personal data. You can change and supplement the personal data you entered at registration. Add a picture of yourself, your favourite (chess) saying and a short curriculum vitae. Of special importance is your email address: please update it immediately when it changes.
• Membership. Shows all your payments and your current membership status.
• Game limit. Gives you a detailed calculation of your current game limit. You can check if you are allowed to start another tournament.
• Close account. Close your PlayChess account permanently. This will stop you receiving any further emails from PlayChess. Premium members must cancel their PayPal subscription at the PayPal site.

History and statistics

Several statistical pages show your performance in past games and tournaments.

• Running tournaments. Shows the status of all your running tournaments. Tournaments are shown as "running" until all games are over.
• Completed tournaments. Shows your finished tournaments.
• Finished games in HCL/ACL/CCL. List of your valid games in any of these leagues. Use this list to annotate your games. With a graphical representation of your rating development.
• Your annotations. List of the annotations written by you.
• Private games. List of your finished private games. Use this list to annotate any of these games.
• Wins and losses. Your win/loss statistic - members only.
• Favourite openings. Combined opening tree of your games. Shows your most (and least) successful opening ideas. (members only).

Important actions

These links bring you into play at PlayChess:

• Participate in a tournament. Probably the most important link on this page. Hit this link if you want to start a new tournament; and then follow the instructions.
  As a human player, you have the choice between the conventional Human Chess League (HCL), where chess engines are forbidden, and the Advanced Chess League (ACL) with computer-assisted games. The term "Advanced Chess" (created by the former world champion Garri Kasparov) has nothing to do with playing strength. Instead it describes chess games between two human-computer teams. In the ACL you can decide if you want to make the move proposed by your chess program or follow your own considerations. Please read the tournament rules before you enroll in a tournament!
• New private game. Challenge any player for a private game (members only.
• Holidays. You can stop the clock in all your running games while you are on leave. Other players will see these games marked as paused. The following page explains all the details.
• Pending challenges. Shows pending challenges and running private games.
• Find other players. You want to contact a player but have forgotten his exact name? The player search may help you find him (or her).
• Link to PlayChess. You have a chess site yourself and you want to exchange links with PlayChess? Here you find instructions and material.
• Invite a friend. Spread the word about PlayChess! And if your friend becomes a paying member, your can even win prizes in our Referral lottery...

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