Things are picking up on FICS! Today I met a handful of fairly strong
players that played interesting chess, and gave me more than I bargained
for. I have noticed more and more players coming over since icc got a
bug up their butt.

Playing on FICS allows you to 'sign on' with an imaginative nick, so
long as it is not registered. I believe this adds some color to the
game, letting you express yourself by witty means. Try it, you'll like it.

Soon, I won't even remember what icc was.

nospam wrote:
Things are picking up on FICS! Today I met a handful of fairly strong
players that played interesting chess, and gave me more than I bargained
for. I have noticed more and more players coming over since icc got a
bug up their butt.

Playing on FICS allows you to 'sign on' with an imaginative nick, so
long as it is not registered. I believe this adds some color to the
game, letting you express yourself by witty means. Try it, you'll like it.

Soon, I won't even remember what icc was.

Heck. I'll mail a donation to FICS. ICC can drop dead. There
arrogance has reached the stratosphere in my opinion.

EZoto

Heck. I'll mail a donation to FICS. ICC can drop dead. There
arrogance has reached the stratosphere in my opinion.

I am on FICS mostly, but what is the issue with ICC? I am curious, as
I was considering a membership. I do note that guests can no longer do
anything useful...

Uzytkownik napisal w wiadomosci
oups.com...
Heck. I'll mail a donation to FICS. ICC can drop dead. There
arrogance has reached the stratosphere in my opinion.

I am on FICS mostly, but what is the issue with ICC? I am curious, as
I was considering a membership. I do note that guests can no longer do
anything useful...

It looks like they are more expensive then before :

http://www.chessclub.com/tryicc/purchase.html

And recently I can see an ocean of computer players and only a drop of real
human players.

Jerzy wrote:
Uzytkownik napisal w wiadomosci
oups.com...

Heck. I'll mail a donation to FICS. ICC can drop dead. There
arrogance has reached the stratosphere in my opinion.

I am on FICS mostly, but what is the issue with ICC? I am curious, as
I was considering a membership. I do note that guests can no longer do
anything useful...


It looks like they are more expensive then before :

http://www.chessclub.com/tryicc/purchase.html


But its just slightly over $1/week, which is hardly a lot.

And recently I can see an ocean of computer players and only a drop of real
human players.

It's true there are lots of computers. Perhaps computers that don't keep
improving (i.e. the developers are actually developing then) should be
removed.

Or only allow open-source computer programs. That might result in better
chess programs, as different techniques can be taken from different
engines.

It is hard to see what is gained by having lots of chess engines online
on ICC.




--
Dave (from the UK)

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form:
Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually.

http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)

In article ,
"Dave (from the UK)"
wrote:

But its just slightly over $1/week, which is hardly a lot.

Not a lot, maybe ... but a heck of a lot more expensive than "free."

U¿ytkownik "Ron" napisa³ w wiadomo¶ci
news:ronaldinho_m-

But its just slightly over $1/week, which is hardly a lot.

Not a lot, maybe ... but a heck of a lot more expensive than "free."

For free you have access to the excellent playchess.com server. And what`s
more you have a very strong playing software Fritz for a relatively small
sum of money.

It is probably the best playing zone for all European chess-players and not
only European. :-)

I've noticed that many chessplayers are very cheap indeed. Every tournament
I go to, I hear bitching about the amount of the entry fee, or that the
prize fund should be more. So I guess it's not surprising when they expect
something for nothing on line. ICC, however, is still the best "live" chess
site.

"Ron" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Dave (from the UK)"
wrote:

But its just slightly over $1/week, which is hardly a lot.

Not a lot, maybe ... but a heck of a lot more expensive than "free."

In article ,
"Websurfer" wrote:

I've noticed that many chessplayers are very cheap indeed. Every tournament
I go to, I hear bitching about the amount of the entry fee, or that the
prize fund should be more. So I guess it's not surprising when they expect
something for nothing on line.

The problem is, "websurfer" that there are some very good free chess
servers online. I've played on FICS since about the time FICS and ICC
split - and I've never felt like I was missing anything that ICC was
offering.

It doesn't make me cheap to want to play for free, as opposed to paying,
when there's no advantage to paying and there's a place which is happy
to let me play for free.

-Ron

$60 a year is certainly expensive as things go in the Internet world.
The typical user fee for most sites is around $30 per year, though some
are less and a few are more (like Backgammon sites, but then that's all
about money anyways).

I guess it depends how much you use it. It comes to just about 17
cents a day; not expensive if you use it quite regularly.

FICS is free, ICC is $60 --- does ICC deliver that much more value to
be willing to pay the fee? Unfortunately from the cheesy 7 day free
trial I was not able to tell, so the implicit answer is "no" ---- but
regular users undoubtedly could provide better input.