Welcome to the World of Chess!

First Italian Championships

The 1999-2000 FICS is to announcing that the First Italian Internet Championship will be held on FICS.  This tournament will start on Thursday, March 9, 2000.  The time controls are 5 0 Blitz, there are no rating requirments to play in the tournament.  Only Italian players will be admitted in this tournament.  The tournament organizer is frengo(TM).  You can find more information for the tournament on : The Italian Championship website  or by emailing frengo.

Linares 2000

The Linares 2000 Tournament runs February 28th - March 10th.  The tournament features Kasparov, Anand, Shirov, Kramnik, Khalifman and Leko.  FICS will be relaying be relaying games from all the rounds 'live' and up to the minute.

Second Tournament of Champions update:  Congrats to Laazrockit for winning the "Second Cycle" of the Tournament of Champions!  Laazrockit defeated Halcyonn 3-1 in a best of seven match, with Halcyonn conceding the match after four games on February 28th on FICS.  This is Laazrockit's second consecutive Cycle Championship! Thank you to all who participated!

Suicide on Saturdays (SOS):   The SOS (Suicide On Saturdays) is a tournament run each week by DChessmaster(TM).   The SOS Tournament will be held every Saturday at 10 am server time (CDT).   The score is kept for each player who plays in 1 or more tournaments.   The weekly tournament will be a 5 0 Swiss consisting of 5 rounds.   There will also be a quarterly Suicide Championship.   And lastly, there will be an Annual Suicide Championship 4 player 5 0 Double Round Robin!   The quarterly championships will be a qualification tournament for the annual tournament.

To qualify for a quarterly tournament, you must be in the top scores of a division.   The divisions are under 1800 (0-1799) and over 1800 (1800-9999). To qualify for a quarterly tournament, you must be in the top 4 scores in the over 1800 section or top 2 from the under 1800 section. If a player is forced to withdraw or is unable to attend, a wildcard slot will be available to the next qualified player from their division.   The winner of the under 1800 section gets a lesson from Haley (2326).  More information about this event may be obtained by emailing DChessmaster or contacting him while on FICS. Also 'finger SOStourney' while online or you visit the SOS web site at http://www.kingscourt.cjb.net/

SOS News - Congratulations to Sandstrom!

Sandstrom won FICS first ever SOS Quarterly Championship Tournament that was held on January 8, 2000.  He now qualifies to play in the Annual Server Suicide Championship Tournament.   The following shows player standings for the new quarter (Jan, Feb, Mar).

Current SOS Quarterly standings -
First: DChessmaster (20.0)
Second: Knightwizard (19.5)
Third: SuperIntellect (15.5)

Other interesting statistics for the previous quarter:
Highest Score (1st place): luvk(39.5)
Highest Rating: Haley(2350)
Most Improved Rating: luvk(+202)
Highest Score(under 1800): cox(15.0)
Most Improved Rating(under 1800): paddles(+141)

Click here for more FICS tournament information!

***** The Chess Academy *****

The FICS Chess Academy provides a medium for the interaction between strong and weaker chess players. Stronger players, designated by the symbol (CA), donate their time to help their weaker counterparts in order to share knowledge. The most common event is semi-formal analysis of games or positions, there will also be lectures, master challenge sessions, guided group analysis of GM games, and more!  In accordance with the principles by which FICS was founded, all Academy advisers volunteer their time and expertise. Instructors are users who are master or candidate master (expert) strength players and are enthusiastic about helping others.

Do you have a question on how to participate?  To receive instruction or otherwise participate in the Chess Academy you should follow these steps:

• See the schedule for Academy Hours by typing 'help motd'.
• Use the 'date' command to check the time of day.
• Add one or more of the following channels:

The proceedings start in channel 65, but often "follow (CA Lecturer)" is used while examining a game or position. Prepare your questions and interesting games before the Chess Academy hour starts.  Game submissions for analysis are welcome, and should be e-mailed to: The Chess Academy and/or saved in your journal, accompanied by a  message to Academy.  Use tells to channel 65 during the Chess Academy Hours ('tell 65 I don't understand the Lucena position').  Chess advisers will have (CA) after their handles.

The  FICS Chess Academy weekly schedule for March:

*  Every Sunday at 15:00 server time, the Chess Academy will hold
Special events such as: team games, simuls and master events.

The next lecture by GM Knezevic is scheduled for March 5th

GM Knezevic lectures are twice every month.
He will be continuing a lecture series on the Alekhine Defense.
Lectures are held on the first and third Sunday's of the month.

All lectures will start at 09:00 server time.
To stay updated, finger the Academy account on FICS.

*****New Players *****

A total of 1,800 new player accounts have been created for the month of February.
Currently to date, FICS total size is 60,634 player accounts.
Active accounts in the month of February totaled 11,361.

***** Server Tip of the Month *****

March's "Server Tip of the Month" will cover, How to register on FICS

Registering on FICS:  To register on FICS, simply press the 'Register' button in the menu on the left side of our homepage, and fill out the registration form.  You will need to supply a handle (the name you will use while on FICS), your e-mail address (which may not be a free e-mail address such as hotmail), and your full name.  Your email address and name will remain confidential, and will only be shared with FICS administration and yourself. Membership with FICS is completely free.

When done correctly, the registration process is a series of three emails:

• When registering through our homepage, the first email you will receive will be a reply from the server.   This is done to confirm the information you gave on the homepage is correct (this does not mean you are registered). Once you confirm the information is correct, you will see instructions telling you to reply. There will be a line at the bottom of the email which you will need to include in your reply back to the server.
• Once you reply to the first email, you will receive a second email confirming that your handle was registered and a password will be sent in a third email.
• The final email message will contain your initial password for FICS.

If you encounter problems with your registration, here are some general questions you should ask yourself.

• Have you replied to your original email received from the server.  If you notice there is a section at the bottom of the initial registration email that says you have send the 'fics_addplayer' line back to the server. You have to reply to this in order to get to the next step in the registration process.
• Have you checked to see if the handle was already taken on the server by another player? Our registration page has an area where you can check to see if the handle is available.  If you didn't check to see if the handle is already taken, your email reply will not go any further and a password will NOT be sent to you.
• Is the handle you picked between 3-17 characters long?  If you choose a handle with only two characters, your registration will not go through. Handles can only be alphabet letters, we do not accept handles with numbers in it. Nor do we accept handles with spaces in between the letters.
• Please check to see if have you registered on aics (the American server), or eics (the European server).  This information is also available on your initial email.
• FICS does not allow free email accounts to registered through the automated email process. If you only have access to a free email account, you will need to log on as a guest and speak with an administrator. Your account may need to be created manually, but there is a verification process that will need to be completed prior to the account being created.
• Once again, please remember; the registration process when done properly is a series of three emails when registering through our homepage.  The third and final email from the server will contain your password.