ICC Quick Start

Connecting to ICC
Watching a Game
Playing a Game
Time and Timestamp
Main Session Window
Chatting
Getting Help Online
Chat Channels
Explore & Enjoy!

Connecting to ICC


Whether or not you are already familiar with the Internet Chess Club, you can get started in just a few easy steps:

Leave the Welcome screen up when it appears.

Choose Connection Settings... from the File menu.

If you are an ICC Member, enter your ICC Handle and Password.

If you are not an ICC Member (or wish to play anonymously), enter the name you wish to use on-line or the word "guest" in the ICC Handle field, and leave the Password field empty.

Click OK

Click Connect in the Welcome Screen, or press Return, to connect to ICC.

If all is well with your TCP manager and Internet connection, you should soon receive the ICC welcome message in the main session window, you should automatically be logged in, and the program should spend 10-30 seconds getting various state information from the server.

Once you are logged in successfully, you can either issue ICC commands by typing them, or you can use the special features of Internet Chess to watch or play games, issue challenges, etc.

Open the Games and Players Lists from the Windows menu to see what is going on in ICC.

Watching a Game


Select a game in the Games List and click Observe to watch it; a chessboard window will open automatically. (Double-clicking on the selected game also puts the game under observation.) Simply close the window to stop observing the game again. Click the zoom button on the top right of the chessboard to switch between the two currently available size boards. Alternate sets of pieces for the larger board are available from the Board Display... dialog in the Options menu.

Playing a Game


In the Players List, click on any column heading in the players display to sort players alphabetically, or by one of their various chess ratings, or by their current status (Open for a game, Playing, eXamining, or not available). (C) means the player is a computer program; (*) indicates an administrator, (U) means the person is a Guest (unregistered), rather than a Member of ICC, and various pairs of initials ending in M (GM, IM, and so on) indicate a player's "real world" titles, such as Grandmaster or International Master.

Select a player and click Finger to get more info about that player. Some of the computers have very interesting "finger notes." Admins (*) usually have helpful finger information.

Choose a player who is "open" (indicated by a filled-in dot in the 1st column), and fill out the upper portion of the Players window and issue a challenge. To see only players who are open, check the box marked Available. To choose more than one player to challenge (or for any other action), hold down the Command key or the Shift key while clicking.

It is recommended that you play a few games without checking "Rated" (only Members can play rated games, so this doesn't apply to Guests). A typical challenge on ICC might be "2 + 12, Either, Normal Chess" - this means each player would start with 2 minutes for the game, and would receive an additional 12 seconds after making each and every move; the server will be allowed to "flip" for who gets to play White or Black, and that the game will be one of normal chess, rather than some of the "chess variants" which can also be played here. Click on Challenge to issue the match request.

If your challenge is accepted, a chessboard window will be opened automatically, and your side will be placed at the bottom of the board. Buttons at the top of the board window allow you to quickly flip the board, replay the last move, claim a win on time ("calling the opponent's flag"), offer or accept a draw, resign, request or agree to abort or adjourn a game (usually due to bad network lag or personal difficulties), offer more time, or request or agree to take back a move. The top five items in the Options menu let you turn on or off Autoflag (which automatically claims a win on time if your opponent's clock goes to 0:00), Smart Moves (which lets you make "only moves" with a single click - use this feature only if you are sure of yourself!), Show Legal Moves (a great beginner aid), Show Captured Pieces (displays the disparity between White's and Black's captured pieces), Ask For Underpromotion (or else automatically promote pawns to Queens).

Time and Timestamp


While a game is in progress, you will see the clocks for each player alternately run down during that player's move, and then see it increase after each move if the game is being played with an "incremental" time control. You may also see other adjustments to the clocks, which are performed by a very important feature called Timestamp. ICC developed Timestamp to compensate for "lag" while messages travel across the Internet, which can be annoying at times, and sometimes even fatal (especially in fast games). Originally, only a few players were protected by Timestamp, which had to be installed on your service provider's computer. Internet Chess for the Macintosh is the first program to incorporate Timestamp directly, so you will never be penalized for time "consumed" by communications delays.

If your challenge is not accepted immediately, you can issue more challenges; they persist until acted upon, or until you start another game or disconnect from ICC. To issue more challenges for that unrated 2 12 game we suggested above, click on the Players List column headed Blitz, and check Available. Go to the bottom of the list, where players who have no ratings (usually Guests) or very low ratings are displayed. Hold down the Shift key and use the mouse to select several players, and then click on Challenge again. This will issue challenges to all selected players; eventually, someone will likely accept, and you can play a game.

Main Session Window


Notice that the main session window shows messages about your interactions with the server, as well as messages coming to you from processes and players there. These include moves being sent and received, challenges issued, accepted and/or declined, observation of games started and ended, and so on.

You may also see messages from other people in ICC appear there. If someone "tells you" something (like "hello", for example), you can reply by simply typing "tell [their name] hello" and press Return. Your typing should appear in the input line at the bottom of the main window; pressing Return sends your text to the server. The main window and the input line support normal use of cut and paste, and the input line scrolls if you type a longer line than it allows room to see.

Chatting


There are a number of chat commands. By placing the appropriate chat command at the start of what you type, you can send a message to just about anyone on ICC:

"say" to your opponent,

"kibitz" to players in a game you are watching,

"whisper" to all the people who are watching a particular game - but not either player,

"shout" or "sshout" to yell to everyone listening about a non-chess (shout) or chess (sshout) subject (though many people do not "hear" shouts - see the ICC Options... dialog in the Options menu for settings to control this),

or - finally - "tell [so-and-so]" to direct your message to a particular individual or chat channel.

The tell command can be used to address a person by name, or a chat group by number (called a "channel" in ICC parlance, just as in Internet Relay Chat or CB radio) . There is also a shortcut for sending successive "tells" to the same person (typing a period instead of their name) or a channel (typing a comma instead of the channel number).

Getting Help On-Line


A great way to get general help in ICC is to direct a question to channel 1, the Help Channel. Type "tell 1 Can somebody please help me?" or some such message; invariably, someone will respond!

Channel 14 has been dedicated to users of Internet Chess, so a great way to get help from people who are using the same software is to "tell 14 [whatever `you want to say]."

Chat Channels


There are 99 chat channels. For a full list of those channels that are designated for specific subject matters or interest groups, select List Channels from the Server Commands submenu in the Actions menu.

Explore & Enjoy!


ICC is full of neat features, as well as obscure ones, but those described here will be more than enough to get you started - in fact, they cover over 90% of the things people do on ICC. Once you get your feet wet, look through the other available help items, and don't hesitate to ask for help along the way!

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