Author: Sasha Dittli
Date: 20:11:04 12/10/02
Playing Zone My Dear Chess friends: As I am aware of from my dad Dr. L. Dittli www.kasparovchess.com is bankrupt. They had to close the site and the playing zone. It is a pity. It shows again that Jews cannot run a business properly. I will probably play at www.playchess.com or www.chessclub.com/ I will keep you posted in this matter. WHERE TO PLAY CHESS ONLINE A flood of mail and a quick check show that the KasparovChess.com website and Playing Zone are currently unavailable. The website had been inert for a while anyway, but there are a few thousand people who are suddenly without a free place to play. The vultures are circling! In a few days ChessBase will release a version of the Playchess.com software that you can download and install without having to mail-order the software. I'm lobbying them to include both a free play option with a few limitations (e.g. no lectures, no simuls, no erotic chess variants) and a trial period so people can see all the content before parting with their cash. Actually there are over 100 virtual chess clubs out there, but I'll stick with the best ones I know of. Everyone has their favorite and this is far from a comprehensive review. People tend to be loyal to the place where they play, often the first place they find. This is one of the reasons Yahoo! is by far the largest chess playing site by numbers even though it is simply horrible. All hail FICS! The Free Internet Chess Server is where it all started. Just about every major chess server used the FICS kernel as its code base. (ChessBase is an exception, I believe.) You can open an account or play as a guest. FICS works with various downloadable interfaces or you can play using their Java interface. Most FICS activity is based on ye olde command line. (Remember DOS?) Most of the interfaces make things fairly easy. The old girl isn't too pretty, but where would we be without her? The Internet Chess Club is the most famous place to play chess online, mostly due to its seniority and the fact that it's where you'll find dozens of GMs playing all the time. (Not that they'll play YOU, buddy.) They have guest and trial memberships, but it's pretty much pay to play at the ICC. Their software, Blitzin, used to be the cutting edge but is showing its age compared to US Chess Live and Playchess.com. There are many menu controls, but you still need to learn text commands to get the most from the place. Regular event broadcasts are a highlight. US Chess Live by Games Parlor has found its feet after a rocky start. Version 4 of their software is very attractive and playability is good. They offer a free play with most features and a limited number of rated games per day, plus ad banners. You have to play a rather steep monthly fee for unlimited play and all activities (even if you're a USCF member). They have regular events and lectures. The biggest problem is that they haven't reached a critical mass of players so you can sit around waiting a long time for a game depending on the hour. And those sound effects have to go. I don't need a lobotomized voice telling me when I'm in check! The World Chess Network started around the same time as KasparovChess, but without much in the way of a website. Their downloadable client is average; like some of the others it seems like a Java applet that has grown too big for its pants. (This was the case at KC as well.) There are daily events with GMs playing and giving lectures. They offer a trial period of 10 days and after that you can only play as an anonymous guest without a rating. The interface is a bit awkward, the seek/challenge process is particularly quirky. Chess.net has been around for a while and hasn't done well against increased competition. They are switching to an all-pay format in February, 2003. It's still worth checking out if you're going to shop around. You can find hundreds of people there most of the time, although those numbers will likely drop sharply when it's pay to play. Sasha Dittli recently started hosting his academy's online chess activities at Playchess.com, and that's not a bad recommendation. The Playchess interface is beautiful, by far the best in the field, and playability is very good. (Except that the clock placement drives me crazy in lightning chess. I never know which clock is mine!) There are constant tournaments and more training events every day. I'll be giving lectures and hosting chats and contests there as well. Playchess has built up a large base of players and I expect that number to explode when the downloadable client comes out this month. Don't be hasty. Look around and don't put up any money anywhere until you've tried at least two sites. Let us try to stay friends. I will inform you as soon as possible which is the best internet chess site and where I am playing at. Lots of regards, Sasha Dittli
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