Online Chess Servers

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Online Chess Servers

Updated 12/09/02

The last few years have seen an explosive growth in the number places to play online chess. This article will present an overview of a few of the more popular places to play on the net. However, it will not discuss places like Yahoo or Lycos games. I will also not be discussing some of the non-real time options like It’s Your Turn.com and Sound Keepers.

All the chess servers discussed in this article provide a meeting place for chess players from all over the world. But of course, their main purpose is to facilitate game play, and all the chess servers handle this with aplomb. There are other things you can do on the servers as well, like chat with other players, observe other people’s games, or take online chess lessons. All the servers discussed in this article provide these extras, but some do it better than others.

The Servers

The table shown below lists the servers that I looked at for this article. Some of the servers listed in the table are quite old (like FICS and ICC). Others are more recent, like Club Kasparov and the Fide site.

Name	Type	Popularity	Cost	Compatible with other ICS telnet interfaces	Autosave games	Anti-Cheating Measures	Notes
Chessnet	Standalone or Web	***	Free and pay	Yes	Yes	Yes	Has improved, interface is very simple. Heavy ad content
FICS	Standalone or Web	***	Free	Yes	Yes	Yes	The oldest and still free
Fide	Web only	*	Pay, free guest account	No	???	???	Quite new, still having some growing pains
ICC	Standalone or Web	****	Pay, free guest accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes	The most of everything
Interchess	Standalone	*	Pay	No	No	No	Mostly players from Asia
USCL	Standalone or Web	**	Free for USCF and some other Chess Federation members	Yes	Yes	Yes	A decent place to play, but needs more members. Nice interface software.
WCN	Standalone	**	Free and pay	No	For paying members only	No	Has potential

The second column in this table lists whether the server requires that you install some additional software on your machine to use it. The advantage of a web interface is that it allows you to play without any special software other than your browser. However, whether you realize it or not, you will be downloading a java program to play on these sites. Depending on the size of the java code, and the speed of your connection, this can take a while.

The other type of server uses a stand-alone telnet based interface. This is the most flexible option, and provides the most feature rich interface to the user. I think that most of the people reading this article should go with a telnet service for this reason. It is also the most popular way to access the servers.

But probably the most important thing that you should look at when investigating a server is popularity. The more people on the server, the better your chances of finding a decent game. In this respect, ICC is the undisputed king, probably followed by FICS, Chessnet and WCN. Interestingly enough, it seems that being free does not guarantee that a server will be the most popular.

All the servers have live events, but I think so far that ICC and WCN do the best jobs in terms of getting strong players to comment on the games. I have found that ICC and FICS have the best audience participation and discussion. I’ve really had a good time hashing over games with my fellow players there.

I have found that some servers appear to be more popular with the international crowd than others. Most notably, ICC, FICS and WCN seem to have a good mix of people from different backgrounds. USCL mostly has people from North America, but that may change eventually, because the USCF is pursuing some cooperative agreements with the other federations.

If you are more interested in playing chess than in chatting, I would recommend either ICC, USCL, or WCN. In any case, you can enable features in your ICS interface to ignore a lot of the extraneous chat that occurs on the other servers.

Conclusion

If you are really serious about the game, then there is no question – ICC is the place to go. ICC has the most events, and the most players. It has attained critical mass, so it’s easy to find a game at virtually any hour of the day or night.

USCF members should definitely check out USCL, especially if they are new to the online chess experience. And FICS is always a free option for all others. It’s still a very popular server, and represents the spirit of the internet.

I also like WCN, but they really need to add the ability to save games to their interface. The atmosphere at this server is very professional, and I think it has tremendous potential.

Chessnet has improved over the years, and seems to be relatively popular. I do not go there much myself, but when I do, I see plenty of activity.