Internet Chess Club guide

Note: You do not have to type the whole handle name, just the first few characters will usually do (except when there are millions of players logged on).

to say thanks for the game. This is especially important for British players, who are paying their telephone bill by their minute, and therefore abbreviation saves money.

In 2-5 minute chess, winning on time is arguably part of the game, otherwise why would the participants accept this time limit context in the first place. Winning via Lag used to be an issue however that got on people's nerves. Since the advent of timestamping, this is no longer an issue.

The moves you play are timestamped, and so if there is server delays ("lag"), this will not effect your clock, and you will not theoretically lose on time through lag. However having said this, lag can be very annoying

On both FICS and ICC, there is built in chat. This is reflect in commands such as tell, shout, whisper. It really does add a very important dimension to the chess club virtual environment!

Basic generic command set for chess playing servers

Remember that these servers are on UNIX , and therefore a lot of the commands are Unix based.

Command	Description	Example(s)
who	Gives a list of who's logged on	who \| complete list of who is logged on who 19 \| 1st one ninth of the ratings range
seek	Seeks a game. Your "ad" for seeking a game will be posted.	seek 3 0 2200-9999 \|seek 3 minute game with 0 move increment and a rating range of opposition of between 2200 and 9999 seek 3 5 1900-9999 \| seek 3 minute game with 5 second fischer clock increment for every move made. Rating range between 1900 and 9999
unseek	Unseeks	unseek \| remove all your match adds. This is useful on FICS to do different ones.
tell	tells a player something	tell Drunkenight Hello there! \| tells the person who's alias is Drunkenight Hello there!
match	declaration that you are matching a particular player	match Drunkenight 3 0 \| makes a challenge match with Drunkenight at 3 minute, and no move time increment gain
finger	Originated from people, who wrote the Unix operating system. It gets information about a player.	finger Kingscrusher \| gets information about the BCC on-line author.
accept	accepts a challenge from someone	accept accept Kingscrusher \| if there was a choice of who to accept the challenge from, this will accept Kingscrusher's match offer.
ob	observes a game in progress	ob 57 \| observes game 57 ob Kingscrusher \| observers Kingscrusher's game
decline	decline a challenge from someone	decline decline Kingscrusher \| if there was a choice of who to decline, this will decline Kingscrusher's match offer
message	Leave a message for someone at the server	message Kingscrusher Hello there! \| Leaves the message for Kingscrusher of "hello there". When kingscrusher logs in, he will see that a message has been left.
draw	offers a draw	draw \| during a game, it will make a draw offer, which the oppponent can then accept or decline.
examine	allows examination of games etiher your games or anyone elses. Used in combination with forward <no of moves> and backward (no of moves).	history leon (shirov) examine leon 6 forward 20 forward <no of moves) backward <no of moves) check out other top players by doing a rank leon, to get their handles, and then do a history <playername>, as above

Interfaces

British perspective on the ICC

Player	Best blitz rating as of 7/12/97	Best bullet as of 13/2/98	Best Blitz as of 13/2/98
gmwipeout(IM)- now AndrewMartinIM	2707	2392	2734 (4)
Shimmy (IM)	2675	2581 (1)	2684 (5)
davenogood(GM)	2663	N/A	2875 (1)
MichaelH (IM)	2648	N/A	2772 (3)
BigAl (IM)	2643	N/A	2818 (2)
HolyCity		2299	2650 (6)
Kingscrusher	2605	2383	2605 (7)
Drunkenight	2558	2364	2558
Airgun(GM)	2541	2288	2541
Gamesmaster	2501	2537 (2)	2586
FLATCAPMIKE (now (C) ). See Internet chess issues section	2447	1524	2447
dwg6(FM)	2381	2180	2495
Formby (IM)	2357	N/A	2357
gjm(FM)	2263	N/A	2263
Krakken	2234	2282	2259
JamesC	2159	2159	2372
Bigcol	2098	2000	2098
Zeitnut	2046	2065	2102
TheCypriot	1980	N/A	2077
ivora	1865	1595	1865
Boudicca	1723	1447	1723
Knightshadow	1731	1731	1730
Trouble	1647	N/A	1647
Goob	1632	N/A	1632
MrWibble	1622	1596	1622
The-Iceman	1600	1524	1687
Vulture	1587	1533	1587
latinattack	1328	N/A	1328
JonesBoy	1292
Robbok1	1196	2052	2505
Smiler	1173	1121	1173
vinnyjones	966	1368	1463

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Kingscrusher perspective

This section is mainly for entertainment, but some games may accidentally have instructional value!. If you want to see chess games which have no tactical mistakes, the blitz games below are definitely not for you!. Look at the computer chess games of strong programs instead or long time limit Grandmaster games. These blitz games positively feature millions of blunders, mice with their own will, lots of wins on time or through time pressure and generally horrendous but fun and exciting chess. Welcome to my blitz chess games collection !

Blitz chess by its nature has great entertainment value and is highly addictive. Internet blitz chess is especially addictive because there is such a wide variety of opponents and it is available 24 hours a day. Tests for addiction include:-

For long serious chess games, blitz chess may not be the best teacher for the following reasons:-

There is a Java Games browser which has Kingscrusher 98 games arranged by month from April 98 up to December 24th 1998.

Kingscrusher 1999 Miniatures (as of April 99) now available!

Web page reports with diagrams highlighting key positions

If you have Chessbase on your machine (Chessbase light is free), there is a trick you can use to look at these fun games!