The Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet site devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants by chess players. Paid members play tens of thousands of games each day, and it is not uncommon to find over 2,000 chess players logged on to ICC. Additional services available only to paid members include

*live broadcast of grandmaster tournaments with professional commentary
*a searchable database of grandmaster games
*recorded lectures on various chess themes
*regular club tournaments
*private lessons by professionals
*ongoing player ratings modeled on the Elo rating system
*dozens of chat channels on various chess topics

History

In the late 1980s a band of volunteers created the first Internet chess server for fun. Players logged in by telnet, and the board was displayed as ASCII text. Bugs in the server software allowed illegal moves such as the taking of rooks en passant, but the server was popular among a small group of chess enthusiasts excited by the possibility of playing chess at great distances with the new technology.

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 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 March 1, 1995, Sleator announced his intentions to commercialize ICS, renaming it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charging a yearly membership fee of $49. This announcement was highly controversial among existing members. Many volunteers who had contributed in various ways to the development of ICS were upset that anyone would attempt to profit from their efforts. ICC distributed several dozen free accounts to volunteers, but not everyone was mollified. Active players on the server who were used to the service being provided without charge were not pleased with the addition of the membership fee. Also, students complained that the $49 per year bill was too much for them to pay, so ICC implemented a 50% discount for students. There were questions about whether Sleator was right to claim that the ICS was his intellectual property, since he did not code the original server, although he had made substantial improvements to its code.

A handful of 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), and continued to allow everyone to have access to all features for free. The free game services provided by Yahoo! and Pogo.com typically have more players logged on at any given time than the ICC, but there are fewer features and services available on those sites.

Today, ICC sustains a sizeable chess community. It currently has over 30,000 dues-paying members, and there are typically 2,000+ members logged on at any given time, including dozens of internationally titled players. Players with GM, IM, WGM, or WIM titles get complimentary accounts. ICC is designed to allow strong players to offer lessons and games online, with ICC handling the financial transaction.

On August 01, 2006, ICC raised its rates for the first time in 11 years from $49 to $60 per year for adult memberships.

Exclusion of non-paying members

On July 8 2006, ICC announced that as of August 1 2006, guests would no longer be able to play games or use the ICC's chat facilities. The free trial was offered as an alternative, although this requires a special authorization from the administrators for non Windows/BlitzIn users.

External links

* Internet Chess Club (ICC) - The official website of the Internet Chess Club
* Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) - The official website of the Free Internet Chess Server
* Yahoo! Chess vs. the Chess Servers - An argument that the ICC and FICS servers are preferable to Java-based chess servers such as Yahoo! games
* Pawns Call King a Rook - A more detailed history of the Internet Chess Server
* http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/chess/computer/part1/ - A FAQ on Internet chess, posted in 1995
* http://members.cox.net/cpetroff/FICS/ - Another history of the Internet Chess Server, by Chris Petroff

Category:Chess websites