Before there was Lichess, there was only one choice for chess lovers, who wanted to play the game without ad disturbance, and without paying money, and that was the Free Internet chess server, or short, FICS.
Through the Babas Chess GUI, FICS is a pleasant playing and chatting experience. It is text based, but due to the possibility to create user defined buttons, such commands can be executed with mouse clicks. Some features are still better (in my opinion) in Babas Chess than on Lichess, e.g. the configurable layout, the ability to seek more than one time control, extended filtering of opponents by setting up a "formula" (the letter "f" in seeks uses it), the ability to configure an engine in the analysis interface.
Today, FICS is less frequented than it used to be a few years ago. E.g. right now, there are just 12 games running on the whole server, compared to the 25k+ running here. Lichess and, through an ad blocker, chess.com, are easier to "set up" - just get an account. On Lichess even that is not required. This once again shows that "no setup" is a game winner.
Still, FICS is a nice and friendly place. Give it a try. There are many GUIs for it, my favorite (Windows) is Babas Chess.
www.freechess.org/
www.babaschess.net/
FICS can also be used through e.g. Scid vs PC, but never tried that. And there are online interfaces, e.g. chess.mobialia.com, where you can try it out unregistered.
Here are some screenshots of how FICS looks from my perspective (through Babas Chess):
Seek view
i.ibb.co/YjcSj9t/Babas-Chess-seek-view-Screenshot.png
Game view
i.ibb.co/jzPxfVk/Babas-Chess-game-view-Screenshot.png
And this is the list of my user defined commands, attached to buttons. You can see them in the top bar in the screenshots. Type "help" or "help commands" into the FICS console to learn what they do. The "%...%" thingies are script macros, which are documented in the Babas Chess help file.
"P"
ping
"resume"
resume
"Suche 1 0"
resume
seek 1 0 f
"Suche 3 0"
resume
seek 3 0 f
"Suche 1 0 und 3 0"
resume
seek 1 0 f
seek 3 0 f
"Suche ?"
resume
seek %input(<Minuten> <Sekunden>)% f
"+notify Opp"
+notify %opponent%
"+noplay Opp"
+noplay %opponent%
"-noplay Opp"
-noplay %opponent%
"+censor Opp"
+censor %opponent%
"-censor Opp"
-censor %opponent%
"ex"
ex mynickname -1
"„Join“ -> Opp"
tell %opponent% type 'obs %input(Value)%' into the main console. I then can see you making moves on the analysis board. See you there.
"+ex Opp"
mexamine %opponent%
Through the Babas Chess GUI, FICS is a pleasant playing and chatting experience. It is text based, but due to the possibility to create user defined buttons, such commands can be executed with mouse clicks. Some features are still better (in my opinion) in Babas Chess than on Lichess, e.g. the configurable layout, the ability to seek more than one time control, extended filtering of opponents by setting up a "formula" (the letter "f" in seeks uses it), the ability to configure an engine in the analysis interface.
Today, FICS is less frequented than it used to be a few years ago. E.g. right now, there are just 12 games running on the whole server, compared to the 25k+ running here. Lichess and, through an ad blocker, chess.com, are easier to "set up" - just get an account. On Lichess even that is not required. This once again shows that "no setup" is a game winner.
Still, FICS is a nice and friendly place. Give it a try. There are many GUIs for it, my favorite (Windows) is Babas Chess.
www.freechess.org/
www.babaschess.net/
FICS can also be used through e.g. Scid vs PC, but never tried that. And there are online interfaces, e.g. chess.mobialia.com, where you can try it out unregistered.
Here are some screenshots of how FICS looks from my perspective (through Babas Chess):
Seek view
i.ibb.co/YjcSj9t/Babas-Chess-seek-view-Screenshot.png
Game view
i.ibb.co/jzPxfVk/Babas-Chess-game-view-Screenshot.png
And this is the list of my user defined commands, attached to buttons. You can see them in the top bar in the screenshots. Type "help" or "help commands" into the FICS console to learn what they do. The "%...%" thingies are script macros, which are documented in the Babas Chess help file.
"P"
ping
"resume"
resume
"Suche 1 0"
resume
seek 1 0 f
"Suche 3 0"
resume
seek 3 0 f
"Suche 1 0 und 3 0"
resume
seek 1 0 f
seek 3 0 f
"Suche ?"
resume
seek %input(<Minuten> <Sekunden>)% f
"+notify Opp"
+notify %opponent%
"+noplay Opp"
+noplay %opponent%
"-noplay Opp"
-noplay %opponent%
"+censor Opp"
+censor %opponent%
"-censor Opp"
-censor %opponent%
"ex"
ex mynickname -1
"„Join“ -> Opp"
tell %opponent% type 'obs %input(Value)%' into the main console. I then can see you making moves on the analysis board. See you there.
"+ex Opp"
mexamine %opponent%