ICC for CCT11

[bob]

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.

Again:

Rolf, go away.

You are once again muttering nonsense about something you know nothing about. I don't use a "black dos screen". I use xwindows on linux, which is in most ways superior to windows. Performance. ease of use. Reliability. Etc. The _only_ place windows is better is in available commercial software. Big $$ there. Linux software is, for 99% of the cases, free. As for blindfold chess, I have been able to play one game blindfolded since I was in college. What does that have to do with this? When I am observing a game casually, (same with GM players BTW from lots of interactions with them) I don't focus on the game and exclude everything else so that I can follow it without a board. Why would I want to.

The rest of your ramblings are just that, ramblings...

I don't care where _you_ want the tournaments held. It is where _we_ (the authors) want the tournament held. That has been ICC for over a decade now.

[bob]

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?

Nope. I rarely chuckle at ignorance...

[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.

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.

Premoves are also useful in longer time control games and in blitz. For example, You can make 3 long premoves to push pawn on a5 to a8 and queen it when there are no pieces left on the board other than the king and a pawn, and the opposing side can't come within a distance to capture that "a" pawn. So why waste time waiting then making a move without the option of premoving? GM's (Morozevich, Nakamura, Nigel Short, Bologan AFAIK just to name a few) do play blitz at playchess... they play a lot of games because premoving in many games saves them time enough to want them to play more games. Without the premove option, number of games played in given time goes at snails pace...

In openings also, you can make premoves when it's so obvious a line you and your opponent are following. Without premove option, one either gets frustrated when losing out of time, or thinks the game on the server is slow and the feature very basic...It's like playing over the board which may seem quite tedious. I thought the software and internet game should be advanced and cater to people's needs.

[Rolf]

The _only_ place windows is better is in available commercial software. Big $$ there. Linux software is, for 99% of the cases, free.

So you miss/must ignore 95% of the relevant chess software. I begin to understand your problem.

As for blindfold chess, I have been able to play one game blindfolded since I was in college. What does that have to do with this?

Everything! With only a single game at once I can exclude eidetical features in your brain. So normally you needed the ChessBase GUI so badly because it would open and link you with the world of chess. If you never saw a game commentary with arrows in different colors you just cant understand the game. It's as if I were talking to a colorblind about Mona Lisa. So, without own vision you are bound to rely on friends or other helpers which is not an optimal choice.

I don't care where _you_ want the tournaments held. It is where _we_ (the authors) want the tournament held. That has been ICC for over a decade now.

Thats why you would never drive a Porsche or Mercedes Benz. And you also would never let your kid toys being fabricated in China.

[Graham Banks]

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.

You can't make pre-moves in real chess over the board, so what's the point of it anyway, except to cheat the time control?

[Henrik Dinesen]

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.

You can't make pre-moves in real chess over the board, so what's the point of it anyway, except to cheat the time control?

I suspect the point is to add even more to the gambling experience.
Cheating the time-control is certainly the goal, but it may backfire heavily And most games where people find worth using it, is placed at a pace where it's questionable to call it chess.
Surely, premove could be handy useful if in timetrouble and there's some obvious moved to make, like a "forced" recapture.
As mentioned, it's not an option when playing chess the traditional way, so why online? Because it's possible I guess.

[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.

Premoves are also useful in longer time control games and in blitz. For example, You can make 3 long premoves to push pawn on a5 to a8 and queen it when there are no pieces left on the board other than the king and a pawn, and the opposing side can't come within a distance to capture that "a" pawn. So why waste time waiting then making a move without the option of premoving? GM's (Morozevich, Nakamura, Nigel Short, Bologan AFAIK just to name a few) do play blitz at playchess... they play a lot of games because premoving in many games saves them time enough to want them to play more games. Without the premove option, number of games played in given time goes at snails pace...

That's crazy. How does premove speed up the game except in those rare cases where you are trying to blitz your opponent when he is low on time, or when you are low on time???

In a real game you can't do that. And I would not want to except for the one game in one thousand where you are absolutely certain of your next 3 moves regardless of what your opponent plays.

This is such a tiny part of playing chess I consider it worthless...

In openings also, you can make premoves when it's so obvious a line you and your opponent are following. Without premove option, one either gets frustrated when losing out of time, or thinks the game on the server is slow and the feature very basic...It's like playing over the board which may seem quite tedious. I thought the software and internet game should be advanced and cater to people's needs.

I'd love to play you games if you use premove in the opening. Get ready to get ripped.

[bob]

The _only_ place windows is better is in available commercial software. Big $$ there. Linux software is, for 99% of the cases, free.

So you miss/must ignore 95% of the relevant chess software. I begin to understand your problem.

BZZZTTT. There are more programs that will run under linux and windows, than those that are windows only.

BTW congrats for "beginning to understand my problem." Unfortunately I doubt anyone can say the same for yours...

As for blindfold chess, I have been able to play one game blindfolded since I was in college. What does that have to do with this?

Everything! With only a single game at once I can exclude eidetical features in your brain. So normally you needed the ChessBase GUI so badly because it would open and link you with the world of chess. If you never saw a game commentary with arrows in different colors you just cant understand the game. It's as if I were talking to a colorblind about Mona Lisa. So, without own vision you are bound to rely on friends or other helpers which is not an optimal choice.

What??? I can't learn to play chess using a real board? I guess someone forgot to tell the greats like Capablanca, Keres, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Petrosian, Tal. Shoot, none of those can enjoy the chess experience since they didn't have _any_ kind of computers when playing...

I don't care where _you_ want the tournaments held. It is where _we_ (the authors) want the tournament held. That has been ICC for over a decade now.

Thats why you would never drive a Porsche or Mercedes Benz. And you also would never let your kid toys being fabricated in China.

I suppose one day your one-liners will make sense to someone that is not deranged. At the moment, no...

[MattieShoes]

One needs to pay for an account at ICC before having the ability to get a computer account, yes?

I guess I'll keep trudging away on FICS. My engine wouldn't be competitive with the craftys of the world anyway

[playwaycool]

Let me help out with what I felt Bob really meant. ICC is professional chess club that have a great deal of title players. As a whole they have a massive of title players played at least once in their life time in the club and not to forget the total amount of title players that login at a time on ICC server, sometimes this will be enough # to call it a small server!

In yahoo I doubt there is any near the amount of title players that ICC have and you have to consider the amount of cheating that really goes on there, unlike ICC that have a staff that track this type of behavior. Also ICC have interesting events that involve cash prizes, Including the recent Dos Hermandos that took place on ICC just 2 weeks ago.

Well, In playchess, there are a lot of GM's, probably far more than those at ICC. With members like Kasparov, Svidler, Morozevich, Gashimov, Seirawan, Shirov, Aronian, Nigel, Judith Polgar...who were all always in the broadcast room whenever the tournament is in progress.

About yahoo, It's not the right example to choose it and talk about GM's there, for sure there are hardly any, but the point is that it being popular attracts more hobby players than other servers.

When we are talking about computer chess in specific, ICC is definitely the place due to the obvious reason. But It seems Bob is talking in general terms, like population and GM's for instance... so playchess is step ahead there.

Ok, maybe I should mention this to explain my personal opinion. I have played in old Chess Live server, FICS, playchess, ICC, World Chess live and I'm fairly Expert USCF rated player and i do enjoy blitz games, mostly 3 0 minute games. I can comfortably tell you there is somewhat of an advantage for some servers than the other but ICC remains to be the one that target a great deal of players.



ICC & playchess seems to be the biggest two servers right now. Regardings GMs, the GMs you listed did play in ICC. I can list much more active GMs as well. Nakamura, Kamsky, Radjabov, Vanweely, Larry Christians and I can list much more but you get the idea. ICC does have some reliable GMs that come to the club to play regularly.



ICC does have more title players as a whole I believe. Counting GMs/IMs/FMs I guess you can include Women titles as well. ICC does relays and sometimes I feel both ICC & playchess are on top of that but I can see where ICC can broadcast a local USCF & FIDE tournaments where playchess may not broadcast them, ICC probably relays much more events than playchess but I think playchess may have somewhat have better GMs going over games but bottom line ICC also have GMs that goes over that, difference in that are not too much of a difference really for average player to learn from.




ICC support is much more effective than some servers, first they have helpers/Tournament managers to help out with running events & answering members questions, Some helpers speak different language so there is assistance for some languages, French & Spanish and even Russian. Also ICC have admins that have higher task of duties that help members as well and Customer service email and support over the phone. playchess staff are somewhat limited from what I can see!




ICC does have some serious events for it's members that I believe worth the membership! They have some serious cash prizes events even for low rated players! Dos hermandos, Brunei, Miami florida and much more during the year, such tournaments drag nearly 300 - 500 participants and a chance for low rated players to play title players. There is blitz events were you can win Membership extension, some members would like to win such events to avoid paying 50 - 60 bucks membership each year. Also the chance for players to always get a game is always there and perhaps chance to play someone better is as well there too. Also ICC does have 45 45 league for standard time control that drag a great deal of attention from many players on ICC for it's fun competition spirit. As you can see ICC does have events that gets a regular player interested about them, you can double check the events I mention on their webpage! playchess of course have events similar to that but not as much but I know playchess freestyle tournament is one of the biggest event there.




Interface support, ICC is on top of that. As far as I know you can connect to icc with the following interfaces, Thief, winboard, chesspartner, chess assistant & xboard but with playchess there is always limitation at this present time at least.




Quickly going over WCL (Word chess Live) It belongs to ICC and it's main focus it targets scholastic and regular players as well and it does offer Grand Prix (USCF Grand prix online with prizes) Which happen to be quick USCF rated which gets the attention mostly to the players that are uscf rated mostly which obviously an event is missing on ICC and playchess but no big deal for European players, finally FICS is free server that have some players and some enjoy the community there, same could be said about the old Chess live server or current WCL server now. Some like the chat more than actual chess itself!