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.^[1] It was the first Internet chess server and is the first and largest pay to play chess server.^[2][3][4]

History

The first Internet chess server (ICS), programmed by Michael Moore and Richard Nash, was launched on 15 January 1992.^[5] Players logged in by telnet, and the board was displayed as ASCII text. Bugs in the server software allowed illegal moves, false checkmates etc. Over time more and more features were added to ICS, such as Elo ratings and a choice of graphical interfaces. The playing pool grew steadily, many of the server bugs were fixed, and players began to have higher expectations for stability.

In 1992, Daniel Sleator (darooha) volunteered to take over as head programmer, and began a large overhaul of the server code. He addressed, among other issues, the frequent complaint that players would lose blitz games on time due to Internet lag. In 1994, he copyrighted the code, and began receiving purchase offers from companies wanting to commercialize the server. On 1 March 1995, Sleator announced his intentions to commercialize ICS, renaming it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charging a yearly membership fee. The membership is free for players with a Grandmaster or International Master title.

Some programmers who had worked on the original ICS, led by Chris Petroff, became unhappy with what they saw as the commoditization of their project. They formed the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), which to this day continues to allow everyone to access all features for free.^[6]

On 29 May 2007, the World Chess Network was bought by the Internet Chess Club. It was then merged with Chess Live, another Internet chess server acquired by Internet Chess Club from GamesParlor. The result of the acquisition and merger was the formation of World Chess Live, a new Internet chess server that merged features of both services.^[7]

Software

ICC provides the proprietary BlitzIn software, currently at version 3.0.3,^[8] and the Dasher program, currently at version 1.5.3^[9] The software has functions to try to detect players using the assistance of chess programs. It does this by detecting changes in window input focus, and the names of matching processes to known chess programs. For a positive match, both criteria need to be met. It also detects if a non-FIDE titled player has a high percentage of its moves matching up with known computer programs. Also, ICC has 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.

Services available

• chess games against other members or computers
• a player rating system
• live broadcast of tournaments with grandmaster commentary
• watch games involving titled players
• challenge grandmasters in simultaneous exhibitions
• libraries of games
• recorded lectures
• private lessons (at additional cost)
• chat channels on both chess and non-chess topics
• broadcasts on Chess.FM^[10]

Criticism

The commercialisation of ICC was extensively criticised by users, particularly that Daniel Sleator was charging a subscription to use a system that had been developed by others. Following complaints by students they were offered a 50% discount.^[6] The security of the system was criticised in December 2005 with claims that communications between ICC and users could easily be read and that the timestamping could be defeated.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} John Black, Martin Cochran, Martin Ryan Gardner, "Lessons Learned: A Security Analysis of the Internet Chess Club", acsac, pp.245-253, 21st Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC'05), 2005.
2. ^ "The New Age of Internet Chess", Susan Polgar, ChessCafe.com, 1 February 2005.
3. ^ "Meek or Masterly, A Challenger Awaits", Lisa Scheer, The New York Times, 26 July 2001.
4. ^ "Children and chess: a guide for educators", Alexey W. Root and John D., p.110.
5. ^ "Internet Chess Anniversary - History", Free Internet Chess Server, retrieved 14 September 2009.
6. ^ ^{a b} "Pawns Call King a Rook", Brad Stone, retrieved 14 September 2009.
7. ^ Joel M. Berez and Martin Grund (29 May 2007). "WCL - Press release". World Chess Live. http://www.worldchesslive.com/trywcl/pressrelease.html. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
8. ^ "ICC BlitzIn page at ICC", ICC, retrieved 6 September 2011.
9. ^ "ICC Dasher page at ICC", ICC, 6 September.
10. ^ "Benefits of ICC Membership", Internet Chess Club, retrieved 14 September 2009.

External links

• Official site