FICS: what was it like?
Want to know what it was like in the early days of anti?
I was playing a tournament recently with some of the usual top performers: tugr, tet, sude etc. I thought about how they are all teenagers and were not even born when I joined fics in July 1997. I was 19 years old, a college student, and I had managed to get a prestigious internship on Wall Street with Morgan Stanley. I actually was working on the 62nd floor of World Trade Center no.2.
The job was a nice opportunity, but did not pay much, so, on the weekends I really could not afford to do much of anything. I had played some chess in college and a friend recommended the free internet chess server (FICS). The first few years I played mostly 1+0 and 3+0 chess and had a great time. There was a super active 1+0 community on FICS with some truly interesting characters with handles like: theblob, pdeck, and obliviax. One very big difference between FICS and lichess is that on FICS there were dedicated chat channels (maybe discord serves this role now?) where the players would chat and discuss active games, series etc. It was very common for 2 well known players to play *very* long series (like 40-100 games) and for 3-4 players to watch and comment both in the game "kibitz" feature and in the lightning chat channel (channel 10 on fics). There was certainly a good amount of trash talk and generally ridiculous behavior (fics was far less regulated than lichess) and it was all really fun.
Another key difference - on fics, there were maybe 2 or 3 suicide tournaments *per week*, rather than one every other hour like on lichess. So, the community really thrived in series. I would log on and immediately check who was online and challenge someone I wanted to play with the hope of playing an extended series. On lichess, I find that tournaments are really how players compete as opposed to series, which are less common.
On fics, the server was not user friendly at all. You had to memorize all of these random commands in order to do just about anything. For example:
to search for a 3+0 game you typed "seek 3 0"
to chat with a player you typed "tell ludicrous let's play"
to check your overall record against another player you typed "oldps tone ludicrous"
If you did not know all of these commands, it was pretty difficult to play on fics.
Around the year 2000, I discovered the chess variant known as "suicide." I actually do not recall exactly how I found it, but it did not take long for me to get interested in the game. I had several years of background playing 1+0 chess, so I naturally gravitated towards speed suicide. I found a few players who played 1+0 and 0+1 (on fics, 0+1 you started with 10 seconds rather than 3) and I quickly found myself rated 1900. This was a higher rating than I had achieved in conventional chess and I found myself really enjoying the game.
Once I reached 1900, I became interested in who the best suicide players were and I discovered that most of them only played slow time controls: 2+12, 3+5, 5+20, but a few, zibba, sandstrom, ludicrous, all played speed suicide and I was hooked on the game. But, without learning more openings and theory, I really could not get above 2000 rating.
I started to play with legends like biltv, noodrem, and pminear. These players and a few others were really pioneering antichess theory at that time. I learned openings and endgames from them and was able to push my game to another level.
In 2001, I was invited to play in the now legendary 2001 OTB World Championship played in Europe (noodrem won, which was a surprise, many thought thabit would win). I was actually surprised to be invited since at the time I was known only for playing 1+0 and 0+1. I really wanted to attend, but I was in the military at the time and simply was not permitted to take the time to travel to Europe.
However, later that year, we organized a 0+1 world championship played on fics. I ended up being the runner up (champ was MrPink).
I know for many of you, fics looks like ancient history (honestly, it looks like that to me now), but it was an awesome community of players, moreover, it was really where antichess was first taken seriously and led to the openings, theory, and legendary players that many of you know today.
I do not miss it, but, I think of it fondly and enjoy thinking about those days when I first discovered this game that has become a big part of my life.
