ICC for CCT11

[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.

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...

I use the best chess software of the universe and that was attested by Kasparov himself. You use software without a visible beauty.

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...

Here you make that same mistake again. You are not a robot chess player, Bob. You are just a patzer like me myself. And what I said was, we can only enjoy the beauty of the game in colored commentaries. The rest is delusion. There is no real unity/identity between you and the machine player. Your own creation, created by you and the forerunners, plays a chess that is out of touch for you. Chess talkie isnt like chess playing yourself. And you can only claim mastership for something you can play yourself.

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...

At least we agree on every thinkable political topic. The solutions for my difficult one-liners show up after more time. But it depends on the reader and his eyes.

[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.

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?

So Morozevich, Nigel Short, Nakamura and several other GM's are cheating by premoving?

It's a playchess feature. Everbody makes premoves, so it's not cheating. Everbody knew how to make premoves - help file from playchess teaches you how to do that.

[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...

I use the best chess software of the universe and that was attested by Kasparov himself. You use software without a visible beauty.

This from the same person that so badly underestimated deep blue? He is not the person _I_ would choose to evaluate chess software.

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...

Here you make that same mistake again. You are not a robot chess player, Bob. You are just a patzer like me myself. And what I said was, we can only enjoy the beauty of the game in colored commentaries. The rest is delusion. There is no real unity/identity between you and the machine player. Your own creation, created by you and the forerunners, plays a chess that is out of touch for you. Chess talkie isnt like chess playing yourself. And you can only claim mastership for something you can play yourself.

Rolf, you might be a patzer. I'm not.

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...

At least we agree on every thinkable political topic. The solutions for my difficult one-liners show up after more time. But it depends on the reader and his eyes.

Since I am not deranged, I suppose that leaves me out, which is just fine, IMHO

[Rolf]

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!

I want to propose to make this a sticky because it sounds like a fair advertisement for ICC.

What I still dont quite understand is how the attendence of many GM brings a value to the spectator who sees the match on a dull display and who lacks himself of any superior chess knowledge. Without onboard colored commentaries and without a helping chess program like Rybka or Fritz that is almost impossible to attain. Without knowing the details, I think that also having all the games of a big tournament on the display with each then the helping keys, this is what a patzer needs to see. IMO he doesnt have this on ICC. The comfort for the patzer is not the number of GM in a room but the ideas transmitted so that he can digest them.

Ok, sorry for the adds.

[bob]

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

I used to play on FICS as well, but cheating became so rampant there, I gave up. Been several years since I have logged on in fact...

[swami]

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???

Wow, Bob. Just hop on to playchess, and learn few things about premoves it DOES speed up the game. In Dasher, you can make premove upto to 1 move, never more than that. You have to wait until your opponent makes a move, then click on the piece and drag it to the other square which is a daunting task because some seconds are wasted for both the sides. Premoves are the MAIN reason why there is huge number of players at playchess (number of GM's included)

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.

There are a lot of games where one arrives at the wining endings, and they can be sure of 4 or 5 moves in advance regardless of what their opponent times.

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

You wouldn't want to bet

[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?

So Morozevich, Nigel Short, Nakamura and several other GM's are cheating by premoving?

It's a playchess feature. Everbody makes premoves, so it's not cheating. Everbody knew how to make premoves - help file from playchess teaches you how to do that.

All I'm saying is that it's not real chess. It's a variant called playchess chess.

[Rolf]

Bob, just two correction for you.

I call us all patzers who are without mastergrade in chess. Ok, what about calling you experienced patzer if you prefer?

Then I am astonished that you still didnt get the DB criticism. Against all the propagandists like you, Benjamin and others, I always claimed that also a program with weaknesses big like Swiss Cheese Holes can get a point against a human GM if it was hidden safely/long enough so that even the GM has no fair chance to get a clue. Not to speak of preparation. Not to mention that a human player had to change his complete chess adaption against a machine and he normally wont do that. I always said that taken a GM would prepare and use all the dirty tricks of Man and taken the program would be known in advance that then such a program could never be playing on the high Elo level. In a longer match or in a tournament serie.

But Amir for his Junior and you for DB have claimed the contrary. As if now the machine could be called "stronger" than Kasparov. In 1997. That is wrong.

And today you gave the answer that any programmer could get the 2800 level with the known features. If you mean testing then I agree but this is not the Elo of human players. Therefore I tend to agree with Fern.

2800 just looks odd because we are talking about autistic, handicapped cripples who cant even decide themselves if they start a game or not and where against whom. Change that and I will reconsider my judgement. Make a self-playing robot, but get rid of the human hands of the operators!

[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.

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?

So Morozevich, Nigel Short, Nakamura and several other GM's are cheating by premoving?

It's a playchess feature. Everbody makes premoves, so it's not cheating. Everbody knew how to make premoves - help file from playchess teaches you how to do that.

All I'm saying is that it's not real chess. It's a variant called playchess chess.

Bob says: "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.".

He can make premoves in one of the games in real life chess when he's so sure about it, but he wouldn't want to have an option of premoving in the software. Interesting...

In real life game also, you can make premoves (by essentially not losing seconds) when only you're trying to push a pawn and no opposing pieces are within a distance to capture that pawn.

Many GM's love the variant called playchess chess... It's advanced form of chess available on the internet. It saves one's time...

[Graham Banks]

Many GM's love the variant called playchess chess... It's advanced form of chess available on the internet. It saves one's time...

Of course.