Is Chess spelled with a capital or lowercase "c"?

That would depend on whether you're using it to start a sentence or not. 

Depends on where in the sentence you use it.

Chess is a great game.

I prefer chess over Time Crisis, but I still prefer Super Mario over chess.

Chess is a great game, and the best chess site out there is Chess.com.

TheGrobe, is Chess.com correctly capitalised? I do not think websites are proper nouns...

Thank you.  This was the intelligent answer i was looking for.  You should get 100 member points for this one.  I think sometimes people should lose member points for their stupid posts.

How is it not a proper noun?

[Edit:

From http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-proper-noun.htm:

There are usually certain words that you’ll always be able to identify as a proper noun. Countries and cities, months, days of the week, names of companies or organizations, honorary titles, and names of people or even pets are examples of proper nouns

Emphasis mine]

Yes.  This is my question.  Thank you.

Excuse me, what was wrong with my post? I answered the question just as much as that link does, in a much shorter space of time.

Websites are different. It's chess.com.

All I know is Elizabeth Vicary is freaking that people are writing "Knight" instead of "knight".

Sort of like, "Gasol, gimme the Ball."

Amy

marvellosity is correct.

Now that the website issue is sorted, I have a small issue... shouldn't the thread be entitled Chess and Grammar?

You know something?  I didn't check out that site...I figured if he was giving me a site it said something about whether "Chess" is a proper noun or common.  

I thought it was obvious I wasn't asking about the rule of capitalization at the start of a sentence!

Rules for capitalization in English changed over the years. The US constitution uses majuscules in the 1787 version:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Constitution_Pg1of4_AC.jpg

Keeping up with linguistic mutations can be a pain for immortals...

No kidding!  I feel bad for those who can never die.  Damned language, why can't it just be static?

Language changes so we can tell who is "one of us", and who is not.  I recommend reading up on "shibboleth", e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibolleth

So more correct, then, would be:

Chess is a great game, and the best chess site out there is chess.com which is operated by Erik and his staff at Chess.com.

?

It seems an odd distinction, especially so when the web-site and the company have the same name.  My understanding of what a proper noun is is the name of a person, place or thing.  Why should a web-site be exempt?

haha.  that was my first thought.  

onosson.  Now with the entire world viewing American media and television shows, you'll find globally that they all understand "us" and can commingle without detection!

Yes, TheGrobe, you are correct.  Website's are exempt, I think, because of their ubiquitous and unstable nature, also the URL itself is seldom capitalized.