NORTH ATTLEBORO

While he isn't much of a chess player, himself, North Attleboro's Stan Steglia spends his day making sure that 24,000 other people all around the world have the ability to play.

It was a decade ago that Steglia started Stan's NetChess, an online site that allows players to compete against each other in chess games.

Since then, more than 430,000 games have been played on his Web site, and more than 20 million chess moves have been made by players all around the world.

"I had no idea that it would grow like this," he said. "I think I have accounts from every single country in the world. One of my very first sign-ups was a guy from Japan." What makes Steglia's site unique is that it is designed for players who don't have the time to sit and play a full game. In fact, games on the site typically take four to 16 months to complete.

The players choose how many moves can be made in a particular time frame - in some cases as few as one move per day. Players can log on at any time and make moves, even if their opponent is not online at the time. Because the games are played so slowly, most players are involved in about five to 10 games at a time - and sometimes as many as 200.

The free Internet chess site started in 1998, when Steglia and his cousin wanted to play a game together.

"We used to play chess as teenagers, but lived far apart in 1998, so I thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with him. Because the Internet was fairly new at the time, I had to create some programs to be able to do that," he said. "I started out just playing my cousin but later decided to open it up to everyone."

In the first year, Steglia received all the moves via e-mail and spent his evening hours updating the moves in each game.

"At first, it was small enough that updating once a day was fine," he said. "I'll never forget the time we were on a family vacation at Niagara Falls and I was sitting on the floor trying to update the site, paying $12 for the phone call."

One year later, Steglia put the finishing touches on a program that allowed for automated moves. It takes more than 100 programs to run the site and Steglia designed them all.

He spends at least an hour a day working on the site - and sometimes more - even though he doesn't much care for the game anymore.

"As it turns out, I don't really like to play chess," Steglia admitted.

But, he loves running the Web site. "Some of the nicest things about it are the comments I get from people. People have told me that they've been able to play against their brother who is stationed in Iraq. And once, a woman e-mailed me after her husband passed away to say how much he loved the site. He was very sick, but every morning, the first thing he said was, 'I've got to go check my games.' "

To check out Stegalia's NetChess, visit his Web site at stansco.com/netchess/.

AMY DeMELIA can be reached at 508-236-0334 or at ademelia@thesunchronicle.com.