Some Free Internet Site

http://www.adanad.com/
http://www.watblog.com

Services available

• playing chess at time controls ranging from twenty seconds to several hours for the whole game
• a player rating system, based on the Elo system, categorized by type of game including correspondence
• watching games played by titled players
• live broadcast of grandmaster tournaments with professional audio commentary and text commentary
• live audio interviews, simultaneous exhibitions, a searchable database of games played on ICC etc. by titled players
• libraries of games of historic tournaments, famous players, and recent tournaments
• recorded lectures on various chess themes
• tournaments
• private lessons by professionals (by player arrangement only, and at additional cost)
• a variety of chess variants, including bughouse, crazyhouse, loser's chess, atomic chess, kriegspiel
• chat channels on both chess and non-chess topics
• computer opponents for practising tactics, endgames, and solving mate problems
• non-chess entertainments including a trivia game, betting on ICC (and other) tournaments, a variation of the game Legend of the Red Dragon, and a text-based version of Monopoly

Software

CC provides the proprietary BlitzIn software, currently at version 2.7, and the Dasher program, released in 2006, currently at version 1.2.3. The software has functions to try to detect players using the assistance of chess programs. It does this, in part, by detecting changes in window input focus, and matching processes to known chess programs. It also detects if a non-FIDE titled player has a high percentage of its moves matching up with known computer programs. Also, ICC have paid employees to detect computer cheating.

There are other software front-ends which work with the ICC system including a number of Java Applet interfaces which allow full-featured play via a browser.

Internet Chess Club

The Internet Chess Club (ICC) 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 there are typically around 2,500 members logged on at any given time, including many internationally titled players. Since 1 August 2006 the 'guest' facility has been limited to asking questions in the help channel and observing games.

Abuse

FICS's admins are vigilant against the various forms of abuse that can occur in internet chess. The most common form of abuse is swearing. FICS's rules of decorum forbid swearing in the general chat area, although swearing is tolerated in some unmoderated channels. Users caught swearing may be kicked off the server but are generally free to reconnect immediately. In the case of severe or repeated infractions, or violating other chat rules, the admins may revoke the user's right to use shouts or one or more channels.

Another common form of abuse is deliberately disconnecting from FICS while playing a difficult or lost position, with the idea of avoiding a loss or to gain time to analyze the position, possibly with the help of a computer. When one player disconnects, the game is generally saved for later resumption. Since disconnections may be accidental, users are normally given the benefit of the doubt, but users who demonstrate a habit of disconnecting in poor positions or refusing to resume their adjourned games are placed on a list of disconnect abusers. Known abusers automatically forfeit their game if they disconnect while playing. Frequent victims of opponents' disconnections will accumulate many adjourned games, and if they reach 16, they will not be able to start a new game. To resolve games which are not resumed, users may submit the games for adjudication. Users may also prevent the buildup of adjourned games by using the noescape feature; when in effect, a disconnection by either player forfeits the game.

A third form of abuse is using a chess engine to generate moves while playing. Chess engines are allowed to play on FICS only when they are registered as such, use of a chess engine by a user not so registered constitutes cheating. FICS does not use any form of spyware to detect cheating, instead, the admins examine randomly selected games and games submitted by suspicious opponents to detect behavior, including but not limited to moves, consistent with cheating. Users caught cheating are barred from playing rated games, and may have their ratings erased. The opposite of computer cheating is sandbagging, in which users deliberately play weaker than their normal strength, or throw games. Users caught sandbagging are also barred from rated play, since this is also abuse of the rating system.

Admins catch some abusers by direct observation, but they rely on regular users to assist them in identifying abusers. For this purpose, there are three special admin accounts to which users may send messages to report abusers. Users report suspected computer cheating to Computerabuse and disconnections to Adjudicate, since a disconnection usually entails a stored game which must be resolved. Other forms of abuse are reported to Abuse. Admins investigate each report of abuse and decide what sanctions, if any, will be applied to the offending user. Sanctions may range from a warning to banishment from the server.

In part because of the relative anonymity of the internet, users are often offensive to each other even if the offense does not rise to the limits of FICS's rules of decorum. To preserve user's enjoyment of the service, and to avoid heated arguments in the chat channels, admins encourage users to place offensive users on their personal noplay or censor lists. If user A noplays user B, user B will not be able to challenge or otherwise start a chess game with user A. If user A censors user B, user B will neither be able to play nor talk to user A. All forms of communication from user B to user A are blocked.

Relay

ICS 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.

Variants

Some chess variants which are available on FICS:

• Chess - it is usually played with different time controls : Standard (15 minutes or more), Blitz (3 minutes or more but less than 15), and Lightning (less than three minutes).
• Suicide - 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
• Atomic - pieces "explode" when captured, removing all adjacent pieces except pawns
• Wild - several variants similar to regular chess, including Fischer random
• Bughouse - fast paced, four player game, in which two teams of two players face each other on two boards
• Crazyhouse - two player version of bughouse