If you want to play live chess just go to:
Play - Live chess - play. A match will be found.
For daily chess:
Play - Daily chess - play. This sends an open challenge which is listed and anyone can accept.
In your settings you can select certain things, like the rating range of your opponents eg. +/- 200 from your own rating to ensure you play against someone of a similar level.
Thanks so much for your help. Another question: in a live game, are we meant to play it straight through in one sitting or can the game be played over the course of a day or days?
No problem. Live chess is in one sitting, you can choose a time setting for how long you get, from 1 minute each all the way up to 60 minutes each or even longer in custom settings. Not many people play long live games though so it would probably take a while to find a match. Daily chess is for games which can last days, months or even years. You can choose a time control of 1,2,3,5,7 or 14 days. This means that if you choose 3 days for example, each player has 3 days to make a single move, hence the games can last a long time. I have challenged you to a 3 day game if you care to play.
I am a relatively new chess player and new to the site. I don't have any friends on the site and need to connect with other people to play with. How do I do that?