Free Internet Chess Server
Encyclopedia
The Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) is a volunteer-run Internet chess server
. It was organised as a free alternative to the Internet Chess Club
(ICC), after that site began charging for membership.
, named the Internet Chess Server (ICS), started in January, 1992. Volunteers coded and ran it free of charge. In 1995, administrators began charging players for membership and changed the name to ICC
.
Unhappy with the commercialisation of ICS, which they saw as exploiting their work, a handful of programmers, led by Chris Petroff, formed FICS and gave users free, unrestricted access. The server debuted March 3, 1995.
FICS is a non-profit site, administered entirely by volunteers. There are approximately 330,000 registered accounts. In 2010 it had over 86,000 active players who played a total of almost 21 million games.
The original software package, called "chessd", was released under the GNU General Public License, and has been extensively updated by many people and organisations. The last version dubbed "Chrysallis," engineered by volunteers at the Universidade Federal do Paraná
in Brazil, includes backend support for the PostgreSQL
and MySQL
databases. Chessd is freely available on SourceForge
.
program, which could be as simple as a telnet
client, but is usually an interface
designed specifically for playing Internet chess. Users can log in as an anonymous guest or they can use the website to register for a free account. Each user is permitted only one account. The server maintains game statistics and ratings for registered users. FICS uses the Glicko rating system
.
may watch for seeks, game requests other users broadcast, or put out their own seeks and wait for someone else to respond. Seeks include the proposed time controls as well as a ratings limit if desired. Seeks can be set to manual, if the person who makes the seek wants to screen potential opponents before deciding which one to play. Users can also challenge a specific player to a game using the match command.
Moves are made with the mouse on an image of the chess board. However, the user also has the option of typing in moves in algebraic notation
, ideal for laptop users with only the built in touchpad as their mouse.
All games are recorded by a bot
and made publicly available for viewing and download at the FICS Games Database (Chess and all variant games except bughouse) and FICS Bughouse Database (bughouse
games).
Fischer delay is often used: the time control is specified by two numbers, the minutes each player is allotted at the start of the game, and the seconds added to a player's clock after making a move (the increment). For example, in 2 12 time controls, each player receives 2 minutes at the beginning of the game, and 12 seconds is added to a player's clock after they make a move.
Timeseal is a utility which allows the server to account for the effects of lag
. Each move entered by the user is timestamped locally, and the time spent for the move information to travel to the server is not deducted from the clock. This program can be helpful for people with poor connections, but it can also annoy opponents if extreme lag occurs, and large delays occur in real time but not on the clock. Unlike the Internet Chess Club
and other pay servers, FICS does not track lag centrally, nor permit user preferences that exclude persistent laggers.
specifically designed to connect to and interact with Internet chess servers. FICS does not require a particular interface; many are available for download at the FICS website download area. Interfaces are developed independently of FICS. Accordingly, FICS does not have an official interface, nor does it endorse any particular interface. According to the current login statistics, the most popular interfaces for Windows
are BabasChess, Jin http://www.jinchess.com/, WinBoard, Thief, and Raptor. On other operating systems eboard, XBoard
, PyChess
, Jin, JavaBoard, and Raptor are popular choices. JavaBoard, JinApplet, and QXBoard are web interfaces; they run in a web browser and have fewer features than other clients.
Internet chess server
An Internet chess server is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet...
. It was organised as a free alternative to the Internet Chess Club
Internet Chess Club
The Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members...
(ICC), after that site began charging for membership.
History
The first Internet chess serverInternet chess server
An Internet chess server is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet...
, named the Internet Chess Server (ICS), started in January, 1992. Volunteers coded and ran it free of charge. In 1995, administrators began charging players for membership and changed the name to ICC
Internet Chess Club
The Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members...
.
Unhappy with the commercialisation of ICS, which they saw as exploiting their work, a handful of programmers, led by Chris Petroff, formed FICS and gave users free, unrestricted access. The server debuted March 3, 1995.
FICS is a non-profit site, administered entirely by volunteers. There are approximately 330,000 registered accounts. In 2010 it had over 86,000 active players who played a total of almost 21 million games.
The original software package, called "chessd", was released under the GNU General Public License, and has been extensively updated by many people and organisations. The last version dubbed "Chrysallis," engineered by volunteers at the Universidade Federal do Paraná
Universidade Federal do Paraná
Federal University of Paraná is a university headquartered in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.Established on December 19, 1912 and initially named as Universidade do Paraná , the Universidade Federal do Paraná – UFPR is regarded as the oldest Brazilian university.In 1920, the federal government split...
in Brazil, includes backend support for the PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
and MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
databases. Chessd is freely available on SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
.
Connecting
Playing chess on FICS requires connecting to the server either through a web-based applet on the FICS website or using a clientClient (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
program, which could be as simple as a telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...
client, but is usually an interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
designed specifically for playing Internet chess. Users can log in as an anonymous guest or they can use the website to register for a free account. Each user is permitted only one account. The server maintains game statistics and ratings for registered users. FICS uses the Glicko rating system
Glicko rating system
The Glicko rating system and the Glicko-2 rating system are chess rating systems similar to the Elo rating system: a method for assessing a player's strength in games of skill such as chess. It was invented by Mark Glickman as an improvement of the Elo rating system...
.
Gameplay
UsersComputer User
Computer User is a computer magazine originally founded in 1982, and which, after several owners and fundamental changes, is still in business today online as computeruser.com...
may watch for seeks, game requests other users broadcast, or put out their own seeks and wait for someone else to respond. Seeks include the proposed time controls as well as a ratings limit if desired. Seeks can be set to manual, if the person who makes the seek wants to screen potential opponents before deciding which one to play. Users can also challenge a specific player to a game using the match command.
Moves are made with the mouse on an image of the chess board. However, the user also has the option of typing in moves in algebraic notation
Algebraic chess notation
Algebraic notation is a method for recording and describing the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers...
, ideal for laptop users with only the built in touchpad as their mouse.
All games are recorded by a bot
Internet bot
Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone...
and made publicly available for viewing and download at the FICS Games Database (Chess and all variant games except bughouse) and FICS Bughouse Database (bughouse
Bughouse chess
Bughouse chess is a popular chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two...
games).
Time controls
People tend to play much faster games on the Internet, typically three or five minutes per player (blitz) or one minute per player (lightning). Longer games are called standard and are also common on the server. Separate ratings are maintained for lightning, blitz and standard as well as for the variants.Fischer delay is often used: the time control is specified by two numbers, the minutes each player is allotted at the start of the game, and the seconds added to a player's clock after making a move (the increment). For example, in 2 12 time controls, each player receives 2 minutes at the beginning of the game, and 12 seconds is added to a player's clock after they make a move.
Timeseal is a utility which allows the server to account for the effects of lag
Lag
Lag is a common word meaning to fail to keep up or to fall behind. In real-time applications, the term is used when the application fails to respond in a timely fashion to inputs...
. Each move entered by the user is timestamped locally, and the time spent for the move information to travel to the server is not deducted from the clock. This program can be helpful for people with poor connections, but it can also annoy opponents if extreme lag occurs, and large delays occur in real time but not on the clock. Unlike the Internet Chess Club
Internet Chess Club
The Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members...
and other pay servers, FICS does not track lag centrally, nor permit user preferences that exclude persistent laggers.
Interfaces
A chess interface is an applicationApplication software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
specifically designed to connect to and interact with Internet chess servers. FICS does not require a particular interface; many are available for download at the FICS website download area. Interfaces are developed independently of FICS. Accordingly, FICS does not have an official interface, nor does it endorse any particular interface. According to the current login statistics, the most popular interfaces for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
are BabasChess, Jin http://www.jinchess.com/, WinBoard, Thief, and Raptor. On other operating systems eboard, XBoard
XBoard
XBoard and WinBoard are free graphical user interface clients. Originally developed by Tim Mann, these programs are compatible with various chess engines that support the Chess Engine Communication Protocol such as GNU Chess...
, PyChess
PyChess
PyChess is a Free software chess game developed for Linux. It allows users to play offline or on the online, through the free chess community FICS. PyChess also incooperates a chess engine which in contrast to most other AIs for chess is written in the Python language, focusing more on fun of play...
, Jin, JavaBoard, and Raptor are popular choices. JavaBoard, JinApplet, and QXBoard are web interfaces; they run in a web browser and have fewer features than other clients.
Channels
There are a number of chat channels on FICS, similar to IRC, however there are a limited number of channels (numbered 0 through 255) and many are reserved for particular uses. For example, channel 1 is for general help; questions asked in channel 1 are usually answered by FICS admins or Service Representatives (SRs). Channel 4 is for helping guests, and channel 50 is for general chat. A user can listen and send tells to up to thirty channels simultaneously. Besides channels, another form of mass communication available to users is shouts, which can be seen by all users connected who haven't turned shouts off.Variants
Currently, the following chess variants are available on FICS, besides regular chess:- SuicideAntichessAntichess, also called losing chess, loser's chess, zero chess, giveaway chess, suicide chess, take-me chess or reverse chess is a chess variant in which the objective of the participants is to get all of their pieces captured. The most widely played variation, as described in the book Popular...
- capturing is compulsory, a player wins by losing all his pieces; the king has no special significance - Loser's chess - like suicide, but with additional rules pertaining to the king and check
- AtomicAtomic chessAtomic chess is a chess variant. While the other rules of chess apply fully, all captures result in an atomic explosion. This means that the surrounding pieces — not including pawns — will be taken off the board as well.- The rules :...
- pieces "explode" when captured, removing all adjacent pieces except pawns - Wild - Nine different variants similar to regular chess but with different types of starting positions, including Fischer random
- BughouseBughouse chessBughouse chess is a popular chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two...
- fast paced, four player game, in which two teams of two players face each other on two boards - CrazyhouseCrazyhouseCrazyhouse is a chess variant similar to bughouse chess, but with only two players. It effectively incorporates a rule in shogi , in which a player can introduce a captured piece back to the board as his own....
- two player version (like in regular chess) of bughouse, where captured pieces reenter the game
Tournaments on FICS
Tournaments are regularly organised and relayed on FICS. Below is a summary of the most important of these.Mamer tournaments
Mamer tournaments are organised by Mamer, an automated Tournament Director. Mamer is run by Mamer managers who have the designation (TM) beside their handles and who are there to supervise tournaments and assist users participating in the tournaments. The channel for mamer tournaments is channel 49, and tournaments are announced through tells to this channel as well as through cshouts. Tournaments organised by Mamer range in time controls from 1 0 to 90 30, and include all variants.Other tournaments
Other regular tournaments on FICS mostly include tournaments featuring slow time controls (i.e. typically more than 45 minutes). Two of the most popular of these are FICS Teamleague, which uses 45 45 controls, and the Online Chess League (OCL), which uses 60 15 time controls. Both are team events with teams of 4 competing against each other, and each player typically plays one game per week. In addition, the STC Bunch, or the Slow Time Control Bunch, organises several tournaments with slow time controls.Relay
FICS also relays top flight chess events. A bot, programmed by volunteers, learns the moves in ongoing games and relays them to special demo accounts on FICS, that are shown playing each other. These demo accounts bear the names of the grandmasters playing in the event. Thus, users and guests on FICS can watch the games in progress as they might watch any game between ordinary FICS users, and chat about the game with each other. The relay has covered every single World Chess Championship since its inception. Other major relays include the yearly relay of Wijk aan Zee, Morelia-Linares, Amber Melody, and any World Championship/World Cup events that take place.External links
- Free Internet Chess Server
- http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/chess/computer/part1/
- History of the Internet Chess Server
- Members of the Internet Chess Server rebel against fees.