Nowadays if you have a internet connection at home you can spend time playing chess.

There are thousands of players registered in all sites playing online chess.

You can play chess free online. You never have to pay any money unless you have excess of money to part with. These sites earn money through some advertisements on their sites, hence you can play chess totally free on all the sites links given below.

Chesshere.com is one of the free online chess site. Then there is itsyourturn.com, gameknot.com and chessworld.net. You can download many chess engines and chess databases from chess.com.

So that's a lot for you to spend your time. Its totally free to join in all the above sites and to strat playing.