At the bottom of the links page of my club’s website (pdxchess.org/faq-links/), I added all the popular places to play chess online that I know of. Are there any other popular sites I should add?
Chessok’s playing zone. Mostly Russian and Eastern European players.
chessok.com/?page_id=145
You might want to include Caissa’s Web. I used to play there and seldom waited long for a game.
Big downside is that the site requires Java. Since I uninstalled that security black hole from my PC I don’t play at Caissa’s Web any more, but it’s a good site for those who have to keep Java on their computer for whatever reason.
You need Java to play live chess there. You can play correspondence via Java or Non-Java mode. Apparently there’s a new live game interface there. See the admin announcements there for more data.
One of the better correspondence sites is http://www.chessworld.net