Playchess - A step closer to reality

by Arne Kaehler
1/12/2021 – Playing chess with a friend in these weird times is not as easy as it used to be, and nothing compares to a "real" played game over the board. But Playchess still has a beautiful alternative, which every premium member can use in less than a couple of minutes. I wanted to play a friend, and surprised him on Facebook by inviting him to play a game on Playchess to try out the video and audio options.
At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com

See, hear, and play on Playchess

I made this video without much preparation, and although my friend and I had a couple of small technical difficulties to overcome, it took us not long to start a game and to have a little chat.

In case you wonder - I lost the game.

To use these functions, enter this into your browser:

https://play.chessbase.com/en/play?room=

and add a name of your choice for the virtual room, e.g.:

https://play.chessbase.com/en/play?room=itis2021

Copy and paste this into your browser. Your virtual room is open for you and your chess partner. Now your friend just has to receive the same virtual room address, and you can start playing.

Remember, both players need some things to make it happen:

  • premium membership
  • webcam
  • microphone

Order the annual ChessBase Premium Membership and save twice! You only pay for ten months Premium and you get a 13th month for free. Payment only by credit card. The subscription is automatically renewed on the expiration date.

In our "links" section below, we have two more articles explaining how to launch a tournament on playchess, and how the video and audio option is working.

Pro Tips:

  • Check that your webcam is only used with the browser and no other device.
  • Different browsers have different security settings. Make sure to check all your security settings to use the camera with the browser, so it won't get blocked.
  • Optimally, your microphone is a headset. This is a good way to cancel out background noises, or the typical "echo".
  • Playchess has a "mute" option, which you can enable yourself. You have the same option for your video.
  • If you can only see yourself in the video, try to refresh your browser.

Links:

Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.

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