Free Internet Chess Server

Internet Chess Server In January 1992, Michael Moore of the University of Utah and Richard Nash started the first online service facilitating live chess games, the American Internet Chess Server (commonly known as the Internet Chess Server or ICS). The initial release, accessible via telnet, was hosted at the University of Utah, but over its first two years it moved repeatedly across American universities, with additional servers opening and connecting to each other through Nash's Internet Ratings Server. The software was coded, supported, and operated by volunteers. Sleator's decision to commercialize the ICS was controversial, outraging members who felt the Internet should be free and open, or who simply did not want to pay for a service that had been free. Its tagline is "we do it for the game--not the money". Growth and rivalry with ICC After a few months, FICS had 1,500 members. In 2016, 50,000 active players played a total of 23 million games. The two servers used different names for similar features, which were then part of the rivalry. For example, very fast games in which each player only has one or two minutes to make all their moves are called "lightning" on FICS but "bullet" on ICC. The terms became shibboleths, marking members of each community and derided by the other. In a 2024 book, Peter Doggers drew a comparison between the FICS and ICC rivalry and the later Lichess vs. Chess.com rivalry, with one side committed to free and open principles and the other offering more features for a fee. == Usage ==

FICS is accessible via telnet and was text-only by default. Before graphical interfaces, users would see a board created by ASCII characters, with the lines of the board created by hyphens and pipes, and pieces represented by letters. The traditional FICS interface was a dedicated client built with pre-web technology, but web-based interfaces are also supported. Users can play using an anonymous guest account or register for an account with a username. Registered users can play games rated using the Glicko rating system, with separate ratings based on time control and chess variant. Once connected, discussion takes place in a wide number of function-specific or subject-specific chat channels numbered 0 through 255. For example, channel 0 is for administrators only, 1 is for general help, 50 is general chat, and 49 is for tournaments. FICS, like ICS, is based in the US, but it has been notable for its international diversity. Early descriptions of using the servers highlight playing against and talking with people from around the world, which was a rare experience in the 1990s. Relay FICS relays major live chess events. A bot takes the moves in ongoing games and relays them to special demo accounts bearing the names of players in the event. Users watch and comment on the games in progress. The relay has covered several World Chess Championships as well as Wijk aan Zee, Morelia-Linares and Amber Melody. The web-based Lichess platform obtains its tournament relays via FICS. Archive All games played by registered users are recorded and made publicly available for free. The FICS game archive has been used in chess opening studies, academic studies on memory, decision-making, The server and its archive have been used to train chess engines and chess-related machine learning projects, while the FICS code has been used to launch similar regional or thematic chess servers as well as influencing the design of other chess projects. == See also ==