Thinking of joining ICC

Originally posted by heinzkat
Rec not showing up. Anyway I'll give a few to please you

1) The main playing hall players list is so long, that often it fails to update the players list completely (and I assume it lurks a lot of bandwidth)
2) Often your opponent's rating won't show up, even when trying to view his "rating picture"
3) When making castling move Ke8-g8, you risk playing ...[text shortened]... re.

But hey, the best part is, all this nonsense cannot be found on the RHP Blitz!!

I've observed and been frustrated by 1 and 2, but the player list at Playchess is generally longer and contains more accurate information than any other site. I can sort it by any column with a single click. I like the flags and the connection strength.

I have not experienced 3 through 8, except in rare instances when the fault was clearly mine. Most of these seem far more common at FICS, especially clock irregularities (usually a consequence of lag, and this is far worse on FICS). I use click and drag. I've probably failed to properly castle in five or six games out of 45,000. I cannot blame any of the sites for this personal collapse. I've never attempted to retract a premove.

9 is an opinion supported or not by the previous 8, but sums pretty well how I feel about FICS, which has as its chief virtue that it is not a web client (see we are tallking about RHP blitz)

I haven't played Korch there. Every site has someone I could learn to dislike.

Originally posted by EveRyDay
Edit: Oh an Dasher is pretty easy after you get used to it. And quite nice for a program written in java. Just don't try to give a simul from it. That's where BlitzIn shines.

Online chess seemed simpler and more straightforward when blitzin on ICC was the best game in town, but that was eight years ago and more. Dasher, Babas, and the Playchess interface all offer nifty features missing in blitzin.