Jerzy wrote:
U¿ytkownik "David Richerby" napisa³
Eliyahu wrote:
Now FICS is dead, and yahoo unplayable, where can I play decent chess
for free?

FICS isn't dead. Download an interface from, e.g.,
http://www.babaschess.net/ and you'll be able to connect just fine.

Can he?

Every time I have made this claim, I have checked immediately before
that I can connect with telnet. I continue to be able to connect to
FICS; if anyone else can't, the problem is at their end, not at FICS.

What about creating a new handle ?

I'm not sure if that's possible or not at the moment. I suspect it
isn't but I don't know. But the original poster implies that he used
to play on FICS so I assume he already has a handle.


And it`s hard to play decent chess there i.e. it`s hard to find
players with ratings above 2000.

That's always been the case. It's nothing to do with the current
problems FICS is having.


I suggest picking up playchess.com. If you buy for a small sum of
money Fritz 8 or 9 then you cwill be able to play decent chess with
good players (FMs, IMs and GMs) for free ;-)

Sure and I see your smiley but buying Fritz just to be able to connect
to Playchess isn't free. Furthermore, the Playchess connection
included in the price of Fritz only lasts for a year, at which point,
you either need to buy another copy of Fritz or pay for a Playchess
subscription.


Dave.

--
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it wants to kill you and it'll turn
your stomach!

Eliyahu wrote:
Why is it when I go to www.freechess.org that I get nowhere?

Because that machine isn't working any more. FICS has (at least) two
machines: the web server (www.freechess.org) and the game server
(freechess.org). Normally, what happens is that the web server hosts
a Java Applet that allows you to connect to the game server but, since
the web server isn't there at the moment, you can't do that.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Mentholated Solar-Powered Monk
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ (TM): it's like a man of God but it
doesn't work in the dark and it's
invigorating!

U¿ytkownik "David Richerby" napisa³ w
wiadomo¶ci ...
Can he?

Every time I have made this claim, I have checked immediately before
that I can connect with telnet. I continue to be able to connect to
FICS; if anyone else can't, the problem is at their end, not at FICS.

I have no problems in connecting FICS via Babaschess. However the problem is
the shortage of good players there.


What about creating a new handle ?

I'm not sure if that's possible or not at the moment. I suspect it
isn't but I don't know. But the original poster implies that he used
to play on FICS so I assume he already has a handle.

Of course but the possibility of creating new handles is important

And it`s hard to play decent chess there i.e. it`s hard to find
players with ratings above 2000.

That's always been the case. It's nothing to do with the current
problems FICS is having.

How do you know it ?


I suggest picking up playchess.com. If you buy for a small sum of
money Fritz 8 or 9 then you cwill be able to play decent chess with
good players (FMs, IMs and GMs) for free ;-)

Sure and I see your smiley but buying Fritz just to be able to connect
to Playchess isn't free. Furthermore, the Playchess connection
included in the price of Fritz only lasts for a year, at which point,
you either need to buy another copy of Fritz or pay for a Playchess
subscription.


I bought Fritz 8 and I have been playing there since 2003 without any
subscription or buying other copies.

NO...it's not dead...there web server is the only thing that is dead. the chess server still works, i played on it this morning

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Jerzy wrote:
U¿ytkownik "David Richerby" napisa³:
Can he?

Every time I have made this claim, I have checked immediately
before that I can connect with telnet. I continue to be able to
connect to FICS; if anyone else can't, the problem is at their end,
not at FICS.

I have no problems in connecting FICS via Babaschess.

The statement I made that caused you to ask, ``Can he?'' was ``FICS
isn't dead. Download an interface from, e.g.,
http://www.babaschess.net/ and you'll be able to connect just fine.''
Since you know this to be true, why on earth did you question it?


However the problem is the shortage of good players there.

That's an entirely different question to the one I was asking. Since
the original poster was asking about replacements for FICS, it seems
reasonable to assume that s/he would be happy continuing to use FICS
now that s/he knows it isn't down.


What about creating a new handle ?

I'm not sure if that's possible or not at the moment. I suspect it
isn't but I don't know. But the original poster implies that he
used to play on FICS so I assume he already has a handle.

Of course but the possibility of creating new handles is important

It's not at all important _for_an_existing_FICS_user_, which I assume
the original poster is, as discussed above.


And it`s hard to play decent chess there i.e. it`s hard to find
players with ratings above 2000.

That's always been the case. It's nothing to do with the current
problems FICS is having.

How do you know it ?

OK, ``always'' is a strong claim. There haven't been many 2000+
players around for as long as I've been using FICS, which is since
April 2002.


I suggest picking up playchess.com. If you buy for a small sum of
money Fritz 8 or 9 then you cwill be able to play decent chess
with good players (FMs, IMs and GMs) for free ;-)

[...] the Playchess connection included in the price of Fritz only
lasts for a year [...]

I bought Fritz 8 and I have been playing there since 2003 without
any subscription or buying other copies.

That's interesting to know. The advertised behaviour is that the
products come with only a one-year subscription.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Fluorescent Crystal Atom Bomb (TM):
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ it's like a weapon of mass destruction
but it's completely transparent and
it'll hurt your eyes!

13.11.2006 12:29, David Richerby:

OK, ``always'' is a strong claim. There haven't been many 2000+
players around for as long as I've been using FICS, which is since
April 2002.

Nevertheless for most players the opponents at FICS are strong enough. I
am crouching around 1700. Although I am anything but a blitz expert -
especially at the monitor, I might assume - hopefully not sounding too
arrogant, that I am a bit stronger than an average tournament player.
Jerzy seems to be a class or two better than me, but I think for the
ordinary player, FICS is strong enough.

Btw: A few days ago I started playing at chessassistantclub.com, there I
went up straight to 2300 (getting a starting rating of 1600, which was a
bit tedious in the beginning). But on this server the ratings are at
least 300 points higher than the ELO-numbers. There seem to be at least
400 players online at a time, sometimes around 600, amongst them also
IMs. A lot of games take place in tournaments of 7 rounds Swiss system,
so getting opponents is much easier and more convenient than it is
sometimes on FICS. Only one client is available (closed protocol), which
runs only under Windows (Wine under Linux was not successful), but it is
a very good one.


Greetings,
Ralf

David Richerby napisa³(a):

I have no problems in connecting FICS via Babaschess.

The statement I made that caused you to ask, ``Can he?'' was ``FICS
isn't dead. Download an interface from, e.g.,
http://www.babaschess.net/ and you'll be able to connect just fine.''
Since you know this to be true, why on earth did you question it?

Because you divided my statement into two separate parts which in fact
should be read as one :-)

Of course but the possibility of creating new handles is important

It's not at all important _for_an_existing_FICS_user_, which I assume
the original poster is, as discussed above.


In this particular case it is very likely although I assume that
majority of regular FICS players uses interfaces different from
www-based so for the majority of FICS players the clarification was not
needed. However it is very likely that simply there is a shortage of
regular players on FICS :-)



And it`s hard to play decent chess there i.e. it`s hard to find
players with ratings above 2000.

That's always been the case. It's nothing to do with the current
problems FICS is having.

How do you know it ?

OK, ``always'' is a strong claim. There haven't been many 2000+
players around for as long as I've been using FICS, which is since
April 2002.


Okay, I have already played on FICS against several players with
ratings above 2100 and yesterday I played against a player with a
rating above 2200 (liveZ) a real rarity on FICS :-) However it is still
too few.


I bought Fritz 8 and I have been playing there since 2003 without
any subscription or buying other copies.

That's interesting to know. The advertised behaviour is that the
products come with only a one-year subscription.

Maybe they have a special treatment of titled players ? :-)

Jerzy wrote:
David Richerby napisa=B3(a):
Jerzy wrote:
I bought Fritz 8 and I have been playing there since 2003 without
any subscription or buying other copies.

That's interesting to know. The advertised behaviour is that the
products come with only a one-year subscription.

Maybe they have a special treatment of titled players ? :-)

Aaaaah. Like ICC, you mean. Of course, FICS also lets titled players
connect to their server for free for as long as they want. :-D


Dave.

--
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