PLAYCHESS SERVER

The Playchess server is a product of ChessBase, and rivals the Internet Chess Club as the most popular chess-play server in the world. The interface is beautiful to look at, and the presentation is very clean and clear.

There are a couple of ways to get a membership to play on the server: the easiest and most popular way it to gain access is to purchase one of the following playing programs: Fritz, Shredder, Junior, or Hiarcs. There may be others as well. If you purchase one of these programs, you get one year of access to the server for free.

If you do not want to buy one of these programs, you can go to www.playchess.com and purchase a membership ($29.00 USD per year).

On the Playchess server, you can play against other opponents, chat with people from around the world, watch top-level tournaments live, and listen to, for example Dennis Monokroussos's Monday night lectures.

The complaint that some people have about Playchess is that there are "lag" problems, meaning that there can sometimes be a delay in a move being played by one person and seen by the other person. Other than that, it is a beautiful layout to look at and the price is great!

To visit Playchess, click here.

INTERNET CHESS CLUB

The Internet Chess Club is one of the oldest online chess servers, established in 1995. It has truly stood the test of time!

Let's talk about what the ICC offers:

First Things First
To begin, you need to go to http://www.chessclub.com, the ICC's website. If you do not want to purchase a membership right away, there is a free 7-day trial. If you choose to purchase a membership (see below), you will need to enter your contact information and choose a "handle." This is what you will be known by in the ICC community.

When you log on, you can create notes about yourself if you wish. These are your "finger notes."

Price
For students, the cost of a 1-year membership is $29.95. You will need to mail or fax proof of age/student status.
For adults, a six-month membership is $34.95 and a 1-year memebership is $59.95.

ICC recently raised the cost of its membershps for the first time in its 10-year history to what you see above, so price hikes are not a routine occurrence!

Playing
There are thousands of human and computer chessplayers online at any time of the day or night, around the world. This means that no matter when you log on, you can ALWAYS find a game! The way to find a game is to click on a dot in the SEEK GRAPH window. Green dots are for human players, Blue dots for computers, and dots of other colors are for different chess variants.

A variety of time controls are supported: you can play anything from 0 4 (meaning you and the opponent start with 10 seconds and get 4 seconds added every move) to 60 60 (60 minutes for the game plus 60 seconds added after every move) or more! There are easy-to-use menus that help you select what kind of time control you want to play with.

We should mention the 1-minute and 5-minute pools: by typing "1" into the main console window you can get a 1-minute game, but you cannot choose who you will play, and the game will start almost immediately! By typing "5" into the main console window, you can get a 5-minute game almost immediately. The pools are more challenging than regular blitz, so don't be upset if your rating is a few hundred points lower in these options.

Tournaments
ICC runs tournaments all day long every day. They feature different time controls and someimes they are rating-restricted. All of these details would be announced in the main console.

Event Coverage
ICC covers the biggest chess events in the USA and around the world. You can follow the coverage and live relay of the moves by following the instructions in the EVENTS window.

Lectures
ICC features lectures on various chess topics: they will be announced in White font.

Simuls and Play The Master
Every day, at different times of the day, ICC has a titled player (WFM, FM, WIM, IM, WGM, GM) give a simultaneous exhibition (meaning that the master wil play 15-30 games at the same time). At specified times, there is a Play The Master, where users can challenge a certain master to a blitz game, or to time-odds blitz (they begin with less time than you) or material-odds blitz (they begin without a piece). These events are very popular, so if you want to play, be sure to follow the instructions to jump in as soon as they are announced! You can see upcoming events in your EVENTS window.


This is just a very basic introduction: the only way to really get used to the ICC is to use it. As time goes on, you will learn more about using ommands, how to chat, etc.