1) I would actually prefer to see an "Opponents on-line" section in the margin to the right. In fact, I usually want to see it more than I want to see the "Friends on-line".

2) Wouldn't it make sense to make all of the stuff in the right option "optional"? You already have "Tip of the day" optional, so why not include a 'hide' link for the "Friends on-line", "Favourite boards", etc? What this would actually do is improve server performance, since there would be less lookups to the database to see who is online, what new messages are available, etc (if hidden, that is).

3) I have signed up for a bunch of tournaments... but I am having a hard time finding out what tournaments I have signed up for. Intuitively, when I click on "My Tournaments" off the menu, I would expect to see a list of those tournaments I have signed up for. Maybe this can be added to the drop down box?

4) Finally, when I am looking for tournaments to sign up for, I am usually looking for something specific, like Atomic Chess. However, it is often not clear whether a particular tournament offers it or not. I have to click into the tournament to see what games are available. I would suggest having a drop-down box at the top that allows one to select a particular game that would filter the list down to just the tournaments that have that game in it... Either that, or under each tournament title, include a list of all the games that are included. Probably doing both would help.

Thanks!
Zucan