Links
Here are some links to other chess sites:
The Washington High School Chess Association, or WHSCA, has a website with lots of information about local scholastic chess.
The United States Chess Federation (USCF) is the national governing body for chess. You can look up the post-1991 rating history of every USCF member in the site's Member Services Area.
If you're looking for international chess news, the two best places to go online are Chessbase and The Week in Chess, a.k.a. TWIC.
The best online resource for information about chess in Washington is NW Chess. The calendar and this independent forum are especially useful.
The simplest version of internet chess is free, in-browser Yahoo! Chess.
If you want to learn how to play chess, this is a pretty good place to go.