Free Internet Chess Server

{{main|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.{{Cite web |last=Petroff |first=Chris |date=5 March 2009 |title=History of the Internet Chess Server – Part I |url=http://members.cox.net/cpetroff/FICS/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100313150500/http://members.cox.net/cpetroff/FICS/ |archive-date=13 March 2010 |access-date=10 May 2010}}{{Cite book |last=Doggers |first=Peter |title=The Chess Revolution: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age |publisher=Puzzlewright |year=2024 |isbn=9781454959243}} The software was coded, supported, and operated by volunteers. Daniel Sleator, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, took over operation in July 1992 and improved the code. One of his primary contributions was a mechanism to adjust clock times for the effects of internet lag. He announced plans to commercialize the service, copyrighted the code in 1994, and rebranded it as the Internet Chess Club (ICC) in 1995, charging membership fees.{{Cite web |url=http://www.edcollins.com/chess/fics-icc.htm |title=Pawns Call King a Rook |first=Brad |last=Stone |access-date=10 May 2010 |date=11 May 2006 |archive-date=28 September 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100928230044/http://edcollins.com/chess/fics-icc.htm |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |date=November 1995 |title=Trapped in the (Inter) Net |url=https://www.chicagochessleague.org/cicl/bulls/history/Yr1995_96/Nov1995.pdf |website=The Chicago Chess Player |access-date=24 November 2024 |archive-date=10 May 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050510030854/http://www.chicagochessleague.org/cicl/bulls/history/Yr1995_96/Nov1995.pdf |url-status=live }}

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 which had been free.{{Cite book |last=Hurst |first=Sarah |title=Chess on the Web |publisher=Batsford |year=1999 |isbn=9780713485776}} According to journalist Brad Stone, "players lost their tempers and were exiled from the server, opposition groups were formed, lawsuits were threatened, ICC administrators were harassed, and plans to erect alternative servers were formed".

File:FICS telnet login.png

Several former ICS programmers saw the move as exploiting their work and, on the day its rebranding was announced, they created a mailing list focused on developing an alternative. Work had been in progress, using Nash's original code, since Sleator initially revealed his commercialization plans. Several developers contributed, led by Nash, Henrik Gram, David Flynn, and Chris Petroff. The effort led to servers in several places around the world and in the United States, with the latter consolidating to form the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), launched on 5 March 1995.{{Cite web |url=http://www.freechess.org/Events/Anniversary/2005/index.html |title=FICS 10th Anniversary Celebrations |access-date=10 May 2010 |archive-date=26 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100626015722/http://www.freechess.org/Events/Anniversary/2005/index.html |url-status=live }} Its tagline is "we do it for the game--not the money".{{Cite news|last=Slater |first=Derek |date=1 September 1999 |title=Knight Moves |work=CIO|pages=20}}

After a few months, FICS had 1,500 members. In 1998, the Free Internet Chess Organization (FICS) was organized as a nonprofit organization, although the formal entity was dissolved in 2007. The server is still maintained and administered by volunteers. FICS never matched the popularity of ICC, but as of 2012 it had about 900 people logged in at any given time, and by August 2014 it had over 650,000 registered accounts.{{Cite book |last=Menn |first=Joseph |title=All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster |publisher=Crown Publishing Group |year=2003 |isbn=9781400050062}} In 2016, 50,000 active players played a total of 23 million games.{{Cite web |url=http://www.ficsgames.org/2013_stats.html |title=FICS Games Database – Statistics for 2013 |access-date=3 August 2014 }}

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.

File:Partida no FreeChess.png

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. Whereas ICC has dedicated, proprietary graphical interfaces, several have been developed for FICS, with none having official status. The earliest were XICS and XBoard, with subsequent programs including WinBoard, BabasChess, Jin, Thief, Raptor, eboard, PyChess, and JavaBoard.{{Cite journal |last1=Fernández Slezak |first1=Diego |last2=Etchemendy |first2=Pablo |last3=Sigman |first3=Mariano |date=2010 |title=Rapid chess: A massive-scale experiment |url=https://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/152631 |journal=High-Performance Computing Symposium (HPC 2010) |language=en |archive-date=10 September 2024 |access-date=24 November 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240910175016/http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/152631 |url-status=live }} Though built with pre-web technology, which typically requires a dedicated client, there are also web-based interfaces. 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.{{Cite web |author=vek/glickman |title=Vek-splanation of the Glicko Ratings System |url=http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/glicko.html |access-date=10 May 2010 |archive-date=25 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625235115/http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/glicko.html |url-status=live }}

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. Though based in the US, FICS, like the ICS before it, was 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.

In addition to standard chess, FICS hosts several chess variants, including suicide, loser's, atomic, wild (including chess960), bughouse, and crazyhouse. It became known for the popularity of its variants and the strength of its variant players. In particular, Chess Daily News said it is "well-known for featuring the best bughouse and crazyhouse play in the world".{{Cite web |last=Stewart |first=William |date=23 June 2011 |title=ChessCube vs. Chess.com vs. FICS vs. ICC - An objective comparison. |url=https://chessdailynews.com/chesscube-vs-chess-com-vs-fics-vs-icc-an-objective-comparison/ |access-date=23 December 2024 |website=Chess Daily News by Susan Polgar |language=en-US}}

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.{{Cite web |title=Free Internet Chess Server Relays |url=https://www.freechess.org/Events/Relay/index.html |access-date=16 January 2025 |website=Free Internet Chess Server |archive-date=12 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412221926/https://www.freechess.org/Events/Relay/index.html |url-status=live }} The web-based Lichess platform obtains its tournament relays via FICS.

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,{{Cite web |last=Kennedy |first=Rick |date=20 December 2015 |title=The Jerome Gambit: Lots of Practice, Some Theory |url=https://jeromegambit.blogspot.com/2015/12/lots-of-practice-some-theory.html |access-date=16 January 2025 |website=The Jerome Gambit |archive-date=23 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231123032518/https://jeromegambit.blogspot.com/2015/12/lots-of-practice-some-theory.html |url-status=live }} academic studies on memory,{{Cite journal |last1=Nagy |first1=David G. |last2=Török |first2=Balázs |last3=Orbán |first3=Gergő |date=15 October 2020 |title=Optimal forgetting: Semantic compression of episodic memories |journal=PLOS Computational Biology |language=en |volume=16 |issue=10 |pages=e1008367 |doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008367 |doi-access=free |issn=1553-7358 |pmc=7591090 |pmid=33057380|bibcode=2020PLSCB..16E8367N }} decision-making,{{Cite journal |last1=Slezak |first1=Diego Fernandez |last2=Sigman |first2=Mariano |last3=Cecchi |first3=Guillermo A. |date=2 March 2018 |title=An entropic barriers diffusion theory of decision-making in multiple alternative tasks |journal=PLOS Computational Biology |language=en |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=e1005961 |doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005961 |doi-access=free |issn=1553-7358 |pmc=5851639 |pmid=29499036|bibcode=2018PLSCB..14E5961F }} and user interface design.{{Cite book |last1=Picussa |first1=Juliano |last2=Garcia |first2=Laura S. |last3=Bueno |first3=Juliana |last4=Ferreira |first4=Marica V. R. |last5=Direne |first5=Alexandre I. |last6=de Bona |first6=Luis C. E. |last7=Silva |first7=Fabiano |last8=Castilho |first8=Marcos A. |last9=Sunye |first9=Marcos S. |chapter=A user-interface environment solution for an online educational Chess server |date=June 2008 |title=2008 Second International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/rcis.2008.4632106 |publisher=IEEE |pages=179–186 |doi=10.1109/rcis.2008.4632106|isbn=978-1-4244-1677-6 }} The server and its archive have been used to train chess engines and chess-related machine learning projects,{{Cite journal |last1=Cheng |first1=Isaac |last2= |date=2023 |title=Machine Learning to Study Patterns in Chess Games [thesis] |url=https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.30894.52807 |journal=University of Exeter |language=en |doi=10.13140/RG.2.2.30894.52807}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Bouman |first=Egbert |date=2012 |title=Tribler-G: A Decentralized Social Network for Playing Chess [Master's Thesis] |url=https://egbertbouman.github.io/tribler-g/publications/Tribler-G%20A%20Decentralized%20Social%20Network%20for%20Playing%20Chess%20Online%20(MSc%20thesis).pdf |website=Delft University of Technology}}

• List of Internet chess servers

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website}}
• [http://www.ficsgames.org FICS Game Database] – database of all games played

Category:Internet chess servers

Category:Chess websites

Category:1995 in chess

Category:Internet properties established in 1995