ICC for CCT11

[Spock]

Yes, their main software is Dasher and it's graphics is second rate compared to the chessbase GUI.

I was very impressed with Dasher actually. Very nice piece of software

[Rolf]

The beauty of icc is the population. At any moment there are many GM players logged in. It uses a non-proprietary interface that is well-documented and works with many GUIs, xboard, winboard, icc has a couple like blitzen they do, plus chesspartner, and who knows what else. You won't ever see me on playchess because I don't/won't run windows, and I won't buy a commercial interface to connect.

Beauty? Of what? The real beauty of chess is invisible for average guys. The ICC heroes who step forward and start commenting, say on FM (I heard Christiansen & Benjamin horribly presenting games from Amber), are sort of imposters who do that for a little money. The normal player sees ICC for what it is a crappy surface where many GM players are looking for some extra dollars. Why should he pay for such a stoneage?

Playchess however is like paradise for the average patzer (=95% of all chessplayers) because of its cool presentation of the games. Either your own or from famous tournaments. It's like helping chess to become democratical. Of course also a delusion but at least one with style and nice display.

If you dont like windows then you havnt simply seen the beauty you could have enjoyed, because let's be serious, you might be able to enjoy the black night of a DOS display because you then fill it with your formulas but in chess you aint a player with eidetics who could also play chess in blindfold! That is the reason why all the visiting GM on ICC will never tell you that the display sucks. They just dont need ANY display.

Another negative is the morbid autistic speech. That alone prevents that many normal young players come into ICC. ICC is more like a chess zoo where every player from abroad must have been to see why the USA cant produce own chess talents.

And if you asked me, it better so. Every kid with such a bright talent of perception and memory should go for science but not for chess. Basically chess is a gamble. You put your own life. I was forced to find a passtime during my years in hospitals but any other kid should do some sports in the freah air. Chess in the end ruins your social life. So ICC helps a lot to demostrate that.

[AdminX]

I have played on many Chess Servers over the years. In the begining it was FICS, next in line was ICC, Later it was Playchess, followed by Chess Assistant Club \ChessPlanet, and for Web Browser Interfaces it is Chess Cube. There are other places I have played online as well, but those are the ones I was most impressed by. Overall I agree with what Rolf has to say about Playchess,

I think their (Chessbase) package is the best and wish they had a Linux version of their interfaces. When playing on FICS or ICC I think its all about the interface you use. For me the interface is Jenchess, I use it when I play on thoses servers, I have tried others but Jenchess works well for me. I don't play engine matches on FICS or ICC, if I did then I might use Arena or SCID to play there, mind you I have not found nothing to bad about Dasher either other than the fact fact that it is ICC only.

In the end it is about the Chess for me, so I move around alot when playing online and I have found good players on all of the main sites that I have listed above.

[Spock]

Well for VIEWING a tournament as a spectator, I think ICC wins hands down over playchess. I certainly found so with CCT11. For the participants that were actually playing the games, I don't know how the experience was for them.

[Richard Allbert]

From a computer chess point of view, I find ICC much better. With Playchess, I can only use the engine room for my engine, playing vs 100 variations of hardware+Rybka.

I wrote to Chessbase a number of times asking for be allowed (pay for) an account for my engine in the main playing hall. No answer.

ICC wins hands down.

The only criticism of the ICC I have is the interface - but even that is hard to criticise because it's free, Playchess isn't.

It's a shame about Playchess - could be sooo much better.

Richard

[Rolf]

Ray, Ted and you have much confused.

1) If a tournament is only shown on one single server then to claim that the presentation were better there, is somewhat nonsense because with who do you compare it? Talking about CCT on ICC.

2) Ted walks around to find "good" players. Fine but how strong players should be to give Ted the fascinating emotions of a chessgame? Doesnt it only import how strong he plays himself against figure this or that? Are you playing chess or the player? Ok, I'm not talking about GM themselves who want to train and chat a bit, other than giving exhibitions.

3) Then we have the blunder that says, ICC is better because the software is gratis. Laughable if you pay dozens of bucks per month alone for the entry!

4) Then we have the typical computerchess ignorant who "just" wants to "test" his version of so and so against human players. Very good idea when 100% of the human players have no longer a chance against these things. I forgot to mention that of course the CC people ask for Blitz if possible which is foolish. I thank to G-CB that they dont allow things to play on the Main Server. Things are what Man should utilize but not the other way round. Wait, except on Playchess where it's called cheating.

[swami]

Yes, their main software is Dasher and it's graphics is second rate compared to the chessbase GUI.

I was very impressed with Dasher actually. Very nice piece of software

I have asked around, but it seems the premoves can't be made 2, 3 or 4 moves ahead when playing human games in Dasher. In Playchess one can make 5 or more moves in advance via a premove function thereby saving time.

In ICC, a lot of people kibitz therefore it's lively. In playchess, only few registered people can kibitz, that's their limitation with free accounts.

[swami]

If you dont like windows then you havnt simply seen the beauty you could have enjoyed, because let's be serious, you might be able to enjoy the black night of a DOS display because you then fill it with your formulas

lol, Bob, with the above statement, did Rolf make you chuckle?

[bob]

Yes, their main software is Dasher and it's graphics is second rate compared to the chessbase GUI.

I was very impressed with Dasher actually. Very nice piece of software

I have asked around, but it seems the premoves can't be made 2, 3 or 4 moves ahead when playing human games in Dasher. In Playchess one can make 5 or more moves in advance via a premove function thereby saving time.

In ICC, a lot of people kibitz therefore it's lively. In playchess, only few registered people can kibitz, that's their limitation with free accounts.

So this is not _really_ about playing chess. I've played I don't know how many games as a human, and there is no way to "premove" in the _real_ game of chess. I don't consider that even interesting, much less important, much less the ability to make them 3-4 moves ahead. That is only about trying to run down your opponent's clock, something a noob might want to do, but not serious players.

[mhull]

The beauty of icc is the population. At any moment there are many GM players logged in. It uses a non-proprietary interface that is well-documented and works with many GUIs, xboard, winboard, icc has a couple like blitzen they do, plus chesspartner, and who knows what else. You won't ever see me on playchess because I don't/won't run windows, and I won't buy a commercial interface to connect.

Beauty? Of what? The real beauty of chess is invisible for average guys. The ICC heroes who step forward and start commenting, say on FM (I heard Christiansen & Benjamin horribly presenting games from Amber), are sort of imposters who do that for a little money. The normal player sees ICC for what it is a crappy surface where many GM players are looking for some extra dollars. Why should he pay for such a stoneage?

Playchess however is like paradise for the average patzer (=95% of all chessplayers) because of its cool presentation of the games. Either your own or from famous tournaments. It's like helping chess to become democratical. Of course also a delusion but at least one with style and nice display.

If you dont like windows then you havnt simply seen the beauty you could have enjoyed, because let's be serious, you might be able to enjoy the black night of a DOS display because you then fill it with your formulas but in chess you aint a player with eidetics who could also play chess in blindfold! That is the reason why all the visiting GM on ICC will never tell you that the display sucks. They just dont need ANY display.

Another negative is the morbid autistic speech. That alone prevents that many normal young players come into ICC. ICC is more like a chess zoo where every player from abroad must have been to see why the USA cant produce own chess talents.

And if you asked me, it better so. Every kid with such a bright talent of perception and memory should go for science but not for chess. Basically chess is a gamble. You put your own life. I was forced to find a passtime during my years in hospitals but any other kid should do some sports in the freah air. Chess in the end ruins your social life. So ICC helps a lot to demostrate that.

Recommending Windows to a computer scientist is like recommending a Trabant to Ferdinand Porsche.