I have played on most of the blitz sites available, and at the moment chesscube is my favourite - although I have recently started work on a new playchess account and found that to be quite a respectable server- plus it has lots of additional features like simuls, tournaments and lectures to keep things interesting.
A good thing about FICS is that almost every player on their is fairly strong, so it is the best one if you want some serious practise.
Yahoo is only good if you live in america - and also dont forget to bring a good engine along with you, since most of their players cheat.
ICC is nice but for all that money it is possible to join a couple of other chess sites as a premium member and, really, although you do get the opportunity to play against grand masters they tend not to want to play against lower opposition anyway and also I dont really need to play a grand master to get a good thrashing - a fide master can do that job most of the time.
Originally posted by CCNoobYeah I have to say with no rating system and only direct challenges (no tourneys etc) the RHP blitz leaves a lot to be desired - then again I understand its only in the experimental stage.
It does not come anywhere near FICS/ICC or Playchess. I would rank it along Yahoo or Pogo or those places for complete noobs.
Originally posted by heinzkatFunction or form?
The crappiest chess interface ever, its popularity is unexplainable
I strongly disagree either way. The Fritz GUI looks nicer and functions better than any other chess interface that I've used (and you'll have a tough time naming one that I have not tried).
Rec not showing up. Anyway I'll give a few to please you
1) The main playing hall players list is so long, that often it fails to update the players list completely (and I assume it lurks a lot of bandwidth)
2) Often your opponent's rating won't show up, even when trying to view his "rating picture"
3) When making castling move Ke8-g8, you risk playing Rf8 instead (that's the worst of them all). You also risk playing Kf8, but those cases are more due to myself. The Rf8 occurrences are really nonsense, as the mouse cursor hasn't even been above h8. (I encounter many opponents playing nonsensical Rf8s too)
4) In general the move input is crappy, if you click on b6 and then select a piece, it will move that piece to b6, there's no way of seeing nor cancelling the b6 click.
4) Some squares light up (yellow-ish) for no apparent reason when selecting a piece at random places
5) Some squares show some sort of black "O" when selecting a piece
6) The movement of the pieces stutters a lot
7) To cancel premoves you need to right-click, but this also brings with it the risk that the board is flipped
8) Wins/losses in time situations are often completely decided by the interface, not by the users (I have won and lost so many times on time just due to how the thing fails to work properly)
9) In general, the interface screws you, and in the meantime you have an opponent to take care of.
10) And the worst... Korch plays there.
But hey, the best part is, all this nonsense cannot be found on the RHP Blitz!!