New Article: Introduction to Internet Chess Club

Welcome to my introduction to the Internet Chess Club.

The Internet Chess Club is one of the world's largest online chess clubs and by strength, it is in the top two of the strongest chess clubs in the world. ICC features the ability to play opponents 24 hours a day, a trackable rating system, lectures from grandmasters, tournaments and live coverage of international events.

Today, I want to go through some of the basic features of ICC to get you started. Unless you already have membership (which is unusual since you won't be reading this article), you can get a free trial of ICC. The 7-day trial gives you full features of ICC.

Now that you've registered, there are two main interfaces you can download - BlitzIn and Dasher. I personally have a preference for the BlitzIn interface, since it has a cleaner interface and provides excellent facilities to accommodate fast chess. I find the Dasher interface a bit clumsy when moving the pieces on the chessboard. However, Dasher has one significant advantage in that you can use the chess engine Crafty or Junior (the latter only available if you have purchased it) to analyse your game afterwards. Since I pretty much only play 5-minute games, analysing my games is not that important... (Click link for full article)

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