Found a great free online chess portal created by a friend of a friend at www.ChessJam.com. 

It features really nice graphics of a chess castle in which there are rooms upon rooms of chess bots and live players from around the world who connect through the site to play.

The game boards themselves are nicely rendered in perspective 3D or, if the player chooses, can be displayed in the standard 2D overhead view with piece symbols instead.

New players start with a provisional rating of 1500, which changes for better or worse (as in my case) as the player wins or loses (like I have).

So far, I've been humbled by chess bots and human players alike . . . but I plan to get my chess chops back and start winning again soon--and there's no better place to do it than ChessJam.