Infinity Chess

[kingliveson]

Will playchess soon get a serious competitor? Well, only time will tell. InfinityChess seems to have resurfaced and appears to be on the move. The GUI is quite similar to that of playchess which could be positive for migrating customers, but can also be a turn-off. The service will have to be the selling point in order for it to separate itself.

* InfinityChess (IC) offers more than just online play
* Get our new professional client software for free
* Eye-catching graphics and high functionality
* IC combines ease of use with rich features
* Windows interface for analysing games offline and online
* Support for all UCI chess engines
* Various rooms for all kind of activities
* Various play modes: human, engine and centaur
* Improve your chess by learning and your ratings by playing
* Watch our live broadcasts on top events from all over the chess world
* Compete in tournaments and organise your own tournaments
* Regular freestyle chess tournaments with money prizes
* Play for ‘Fini’, our IC currency, convertible to Euro and US-Dollar
* Start playing straight away as guest or create your own account

[Harvey Williamson]

I guess for the engine players there is no CTG support?

[Swaminathan]

I'd like to see what the traffic is in:

Playchess
ICC
FICS
Infinity Chess
Chesscube
yahoo

on Sunday night (US or/and European time)

Would make an interesting research. We can do it for every 6 months.

[kingliveson]

I guess for the engine players there is no CTG support?

It seems they have their own format, but the entire GUI is pretty much fritz.

I'd like to see what the traffic is in:

Playchess
ICC
FICS
Infinity Chess
Chesscube
yahoo

on Sunday night (US or/and European time)

Would make an interesting research. We can do it for every 6 months.

You forgot chess.com.

[Swaminathan]

Oh yes. I believe chesscube has gained number of members over the past few years while ICC saw great reduction because it's too commercial or so I have heard.

[bhandelman]

Oh yes. I believe chesscube has gained number of members over the past few years while ICC saw great reduction because it's too commercial or so I have heard.

Too commercial? What does that mean? They have raised the price, I think it's $70 a year, though if I was able to get a pretty hefty discount by waiting until the Christmas discount and buying multiple years. For the money, they do have a ton of instructional videos, new ones every week, and the best GM commentary for major tournaments. As far as numbers go, they seem about even with FICS (as I post this there are 1019 people on FICS and 1179 on ICC) but about half what Playchess usually pulls. As far as titled player appearance, I think ICC and Playchess run about even. The advantage over Playchess is less lag for people like me in the US since Playchess users are primarily European and ICC is more popular in the US. The number and quality of videos also puts it one up on Playchess. The other nice thing is I can get to FICS and ICC from any of my computers, and even my phone, where is Playchess is Windows only. ICC also has a lot of nice support for lessons, though I think Playchess has some way to accommodate tutoring. If you don't care about videos and titled players, FICS is fantastic, I still play on there a lot. At my low level (1100 or so on FICS and ICC), FICS and ICC have a ton of great competition and it never takes me long to find a nice 30 30 or 45 45 slow game. Playchess on the other hand had more people but mostly 1500+ which kind of puts it out of my playing range. I will go back to it in a year or so when I am a bit stronger.

As for Chesscube and Chess.com: Chesscube has more people online right now, 1807, but it is browser and achievement based so I find it is not for me. I have not played any games or used it much, but the interface is really flash heavy and I don't want to have to pay achievement points to use the common style piece set I prefer. To each their own. Chess.com bothers me for some reason. I have a free account, and have played a few turn based games, but the adds everywhere bother me and the general membership doesn't seem to be as well behaved as FICS, Playchess, or FICS. Since I'm already paying for ICC, I don't feel a need to sign up, which means I can't test the live chess feature. Yahoo doesn't have an easy way for me to count users, but there are a little over 2000 people on it right now. Keep in mind that Yahoo has done little to improve itself as a chess playing venue, and I would recommend against using it. Two you didn't mention, chess.net and World Chess Live, are other pay to play Internet Chess Servers. WCL has 125 people online right now, of which only 87 are human. I would rather not pay for chess.net, but I do believe it still exists so someone must be paying for the service.

[Swaminathan]

Few years ago, I had used ICC IIRC it was about 1950 online in the weekend, while Playchess had 3500... This was before chesscube came into existence. Now it's 1100 as against ~2300 in playchess, and ~1900 in chesscube.

I had read it elsewhere (maybe in chat discussion?) that ICC had decided to raise the price, and commercialize all of its offerings not taking into account the move from competitors. Also, another drawback is the GUI. There were so many softwares to connect to ICC but none of them can be compared to playchess cos all of them are slower in response/efficiency hence the lag, and lack of premoves.

ICC is certainly good in Sysops/help and computer chess tournaments. You could be right that it offers many training videos and lectures, and it certainly has many stronger players than chesscube.

[bhandelman]

Few years ago, I had used ICC IIRC it was about 1950 online in the weekend, while Playchess had 3500... This was before chesscube came into existence. Now it's 1100 as against ~2300 in playchess, and ~1900 in chesscube.

I had read it elsewhere (maybe in chat discussion?) that ICC had decided to raise the price, and commercialize all of its offerings not taking into account the move from competitors. Also, another drawback is the GUI. There were so many softwares to connect to ICC but none of them can be compared to playchess cos all of them are slower in response/efficiency hence the lag, and lack of premoves.

ICC is certainly good in Sysops/help and computer chess tournaments. You could be right that it offers many training videos and lectures, and it certainly has many stronger players than chesscube.

As to the GUIs available for ICC, they certainly are of an older design, whether Blitzin or Dasher, and Playchess being integrated into the ChessBase products is a huge advantage, but I don't believe the GUI contributes to lag in any way. I know I experience more lag with Playchess than ICC, though this is likely because of geographic location; I'm more likely to be on the other side of the world with Playchess opponents than ICC opponents. Also, Blitzin has supported premoves for a very long time, and I believe Dasher always has. I personally like Blitzin a lot better, but there is no way you can argue it is of the same level as Playchess, which is much more polished and integrated with popular products. The best GUI I would say is probably BabasChess for FICS as far as polish and features go, but it hasn't been updated in years.

Your numbers for a few years ago sound right, and correlate well with what they are today. Chesscube seems to have more people, but I don't like the interface at all and can't figure out how to setup a long time control match though I see them listed when I look at seeks and ongoing games. I am very curious about chess.com numbers, since only paying members can use the live chess feature, not the million or so free accounts currently signed up for the site. It would be interesting to see how their numbers do, as it seems to be one of the more popular general chess sites.

[Swaminathan]

In 1990's, I used to play often in World chess Network (WCN). It was one of the brilliant chess playing site. Anybody ever played there? I liked playing there. It's sad that it's been closed down in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Network