You don't have to pay to play, but you do if you want to play a rated game.To play with a specific player simply push the invite word next the hsi or her name
Occasionally, I keep my wits up on www.caissa.comIt's not free but they let you play for two weeks for free after which your handle and any rating will expire if you don't sign up. One can easily challenge anybody and play under different time controls. The boards are great. The whole site works well, even through a firewall.I used to play chess semi-professionally... (until the East Block crumbled and the market was suddenly flooded with hundreds of new players)
Any boards and URL links to play against computer?
I love the Lite version of Sigma Chess (www.sigmachess.com). It is free and very powerful, but it is only available for the Mac.
-Caissa, I found to be totally confusing ...