I'll be overhauling this website a lot in the next few months, but for now I'm just putting up my old page (with a few fixed links).

• Chess Variants
• Internet Chess Servers
• Interfaces
• Chess Organizations
• Chess Variant Organizations
• Chess Equipment
• Chess Books
• Miscellaneous Chess Links

I have played (and enjoyed) each these games at least once and I play many of them regularly. Existing chess servers support only a tiny fraction of the variants... I hope that one day a chess server will come about in which all of them may be played.

The Free Internet Chess Server
http://www.freechess.org/
telnet freechess.org 5000

FICS is, simply put, the best chess server on the Internet now. It is completely free and there are always a lot of players online. Game types include blitz, standard, lightning, wild (wild 5, fischer random, random, etc.), bughouse, crazyhouse, and suicide. I am online there under the handle knighttour an obscene amount of time every day.

The Middle East Wild Internet Server
http://chess.mds.mdh.se/~mewis/
telnet chess.mds.mdh.se 5555

MEWIS has far more variants than FICS does and sports server titles automaticly granted to high rated players. It is also free. Unfortunately, there aren't usually many people online, the helpfiles are out of date, and several features aren't fully implemented. I am an Administrator there. Game types include blitz, standard, lightning, quantum, classical (wild 5, wild 6, etc.), bughouse, crazyhouse, atomic, suicide, random, fischer random, wild (wild 10, power, and a whole lot of other insane setups), and thai. I am online there under the handle knighttour(*)(FRM)(VM)(LM) occasionally. I used to be online a lot there, but became discouraged at the lack of players.

The Internet Chess Club
http://www.chessclub.com/
telnet chessclub.com 5038

ICC has even more users than FICS, always has a few Grandmasters and International Masters playing, and is the only server that includes Kriegspiel. Sadly, ICC is a pay only server ($49 a year). Game types include loser's (loser's and giveaway), wild (atomic, random, wild 5, odds, power, kriegspiel, fischer random, etc.), bughouse, crazyhouse, bullet, blitz, and standard. I am online there under the handle knighttour occasionally.

US Chess Live
http://www.uschesslive.org/
telnet server.uschesslive.org 5000

USCL was setup as a server for USCF members. It is run by GamesParlor, which licensed FICS's code, so the look and feel is almost identical to FICS. There are a lot of great events there, like GM games and tournaments with gift certificates for USCF merchandise as prizes. Sadly, USCL was recently converted to a pay only server ($30 a year for USCF members, $60 a year for everyone else). I don't like their main proprietary interface which flashes banner ad's to you while you play. Game types include blitz, standard, lightning, wild (wild 5, fischer random, random, etc.), bughouse, crazyhouse, suicide, and loser's. I am no longer ever online there under the handle knighttour because you now have to use their terrible interface if you want to connect as a non-paying member. I used to be online a lot, but it became clear to me that I had a lot more fun on FICS and I decided USCL wasn't worth my time.

Chess.net
http://www.chess.net/
telnet chess.net 5000

Chess.net doesn't impress me very much. It is another large chess server though, so I figured I'd mention it for completeness. Unfortunately, Chess.net charges for its interface ($30 a year). Game types include blitz, standard, lightning, wild (wild 5, fischer random, random, etc.), bughouse, and crazyhouse. I am online there under the handle knighttour very rarely.

You may download interfaces for the various chess servers from the table below. They all have their relative strengths and weaknesses. I tried to list the most popular interfaces.

For a more complete list, check out FICS's downloads webpage.
http://www.freechess.org/Download/

The United States Chess Federation
http://www.uschess.org/

The USCF is America's chess organization. They provide ratings for over the board games and sanction thousands of tournaments each year. I have a Life Membership in the USCF and believe myself to be very underrated.

Fédération Internationale des Échecs
http://www.fide.com/

FIDÉ is the world chess organization which unites all national chess organizations (like the USCF). It issues the rules of chess, grants titles to players (including GM, IM, FM, etc.), and arranges world championship matches.

Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lodge/2483/

AISE is an Italian organization devoted to chess variants. I don't know Italian, so their site makes no sense to me, but they play rated progressive games--and that's cool in my book.

The British Chess Variants Society
http://www.bcvs.ukf.net/

The BCVS is a UK organization that organizes postal variant games, publishes a quarterly chess variant magazine, and was founded by the author of "The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants".

Chronos Chess Clock
Price: $94.90 (+$24.95 for Chronos Clock Bag)
http://www.chronosdealer.com/

Chronos Clocks are quite expensive, but worth every penny if you play a lot of over the board chess. I have dealt with many different analog and digital chess clocks, and can say without hesitation that Chronos Clocks are flat out superior to all other clocks. There are more timing options than you can possibly imagine, the buttons are easy to push, and it is convenient to carry. Admittedly, selecting the settings is complicated and takes a bit of getting used to, but once you figure it out your Chronos Clock will be one of your prized possessions. I have two of them (for bughouse purposes).

Roll-Up Chess Board
Price: $7.00
http://www.thechesshouse.com/shop/SearchResults.asp?ProdStock=E011A

Roll-up boards are just as convenient as tiny fold up magnetic boards for carrying around, yet provide a full-size chess playing surface at a moment's notice. If you play chess, get one. Period. There is no discussion here. They're cheap as hell and very handy to have around.

Staunton Chess Pieces
Price: $26.00
http://www.thechesshouse.com/shop/SearchResults.asp?ProdStock=e119

Staunton pieces have a good overall design: beautiful craftsmanship, perfectly weighted, and very durable. This set is ideal for tournament and casual play. It's worth spending a few extra bucks for the extra-weighted Staunton set over a cheap $3.00 plastic one, as I can tell you from experiance that the latter will fall apart quite fast and the former is relatively very sturdy and reliable. Unfortunately, even this set shows signs of wear and tear after a lot of use. The bottoms keep falling off, so I carry crazy glue with me to fix each piece as it breaks. If this set was more sturdy, it would be perfect, but since it isn't I'm still searching for a permanent solution.

Modern Chess Openings (MCO-14)
Price: $21.00
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812930843/

For serious chess players who want to learn some theory, I recommend picking up a few books on tactics (hopefully ones that have a lot of puzzles and exercizes to get your mind in shape), a book on endgame theory, and a book of openings. For tactics and endgames, I haven't found any one book that is far away better than the rest, but for openings "Modern Chess Openings" is definitely your best resource. "The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings" is more complete and "The Ideas Behind Chess Openings" teaches some good basic concepts, but neither are as essential to own this book.

The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants
Price: £22.00
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0952414201/

"The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants" is a must have book for any chess variant enthusiast. It includes descriptions of literally thousands of variants and detailed analyses of strategies, tactics, and openings for the more popular among them.

The Chess Variant Pages
http://www.chessvariants.com/

The Chess Variant Pages include descriptions of the rules and strategy of a lot of different chess variants. Although the site is very diverse in it's layout and content and sometimes self-inconsistent, it contains an incredible amount of information. I used to be an editor there, but they stopped giving me emails to convert to webpages for them then mysteriously removed me from their list of editors without explanation. Nonetheless, it's still a cool site to check out.

Bughouse.net
http://www.bughouse.net/

Bughouse.net is a great source of bughouse strategy, bughouse gossip, and links to other bughouse pages. You may want to check out my profile.

Bug Board
http://www.thebugboard.net/

Bug Board is a web based discussion board with many bughouse related topics: chess servers, interfaces, strategy, events, tournaments, etc. I am an administrator there. You may want to read my Bug Board posts.

FICS Forum
http://www.ficsforum.net/

FICS Forum is FICS's official web based discussion board. I am an administrator there. You may want to read my FICS Forum posts.

The theblob/woof School of Lightning
http://www.checkmate.de/

The curriculum at The theblob/woof School of Lightning will teach you everything you need to know about 1 0: HS (horseshit): "shameless forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, unsound sacrifices, back rankers, pawn steamrollers, diagonal cheese, and queen checks", HATE: how to get it and how to induce it, and why not to thank after games. This site is required reading for anyone who plays 1 0, talks in channel 10, or ever gets HATE.

The FICS Quotes Page
http://www.neversleeps.org/fics/

The FICS Quotes Page contains a compilation of funny quotes encountered while hanging out on FICS.

chessd: The Really Free Internet Chess Server
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessd/

The goal of the chessd project is to write a chess server that is really free. FICS is free as in free beer, not free as in free speech. In other words, you can play there without paying any money, but the source is no longer available. I will try to give you some historical context. Originally there was AICS, which was based on Richard Nash's free software chess server, under the GPL. Then Daniel Sleator rewrote AICS, shut it down, and released ICC, a for pay server. A few players dedicated to free chess on the Internet got together and started FICS, in the tradition of AICS. FICS was also based on Richard Nash's GPLed code. Improvements were made and the code was still freely available. Then Chess.net took the source for FICS and started its own pay site... this time charging for an interface and extended service, but leaving basic service free. FICS got angry and closed its source. At this point DAV(*) claimed to completely rewrite the code (much like Daniel Sleator did) and said that the code was therefore no longer under the GPL. The available ICS code is very behind the state of the art seen at FICS.

The chessd project hopes to change that by writing a GNU chess server that will never become non-free software. There are two separate branches of development: chessd-fischer, a rewrite and redesign from scratch, and chessd-lasker, based on the ICS source code (in this particular case, the GICS source, not the FICS source). This project is the future of Internet chess, but it will take them a while to catch up and they need all the help they can get.

The Lasker tree of the project is being maintained by Tridge, the same guy who heads the Samba project. He fixed a lot of bugs in the code and added countless new features.

Several interested developers who felt that the chessd project wasn't moving fast enough banded together to write an open source chess server from scratch and created a mailing list to discuss feature ideas and organize their implementation. To join the Open Chess Server mailing list, send an email to majordomo@chess.homeunix.org with the text "subscribe ocs" in the body of the message.