http://www.meetup.com/topics/hobbies/
You might want to check out the above website. You might find some chess players near you and most likely they are novice players but you might make some new friends.
From the site
Chess
4,611 Members in 74 Meetup Groups and 4,746 waiting for a Meetup
I checked it out and found a group in Portland Oregon area that I plan to attend a future meet.
Russell Miller Camas WA
This works better in areas that are densely populated and/or home to many cultural creatives.
In my area, I’ve been updated that the same one other guy is interested in playing chess (when he isn’t really interested in playing chess, only poker) for the last 14 months. People just don’t use Meetup around here, I guess.
Meetup can be hit-or-miss. I’m a member of the Saint Louis Adventure Group (bike.meetup.com/140), which has over 1000 members, a very active message board, and an event almost every night no matter what the season! On the other hand, some Meetup groups are much smaller, with less frequent events and almost no intra-group communication. I’ve found that Meetup groups are exactly what their members make them.