The Internet Chess Servers
 

Pictures from the US Chess Hall of Fame

The Origins of Chess

My Favorite Chess Sites

Tips for Chess Beginners

The Stormont Kings Chess Club

1996 Gary Kasparov vs Deep Blue - Best of 6 match series

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6

1997 Gary Kasparov vs Deep Blue - the rematch - Best of 6 match series
 

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6

Man versus Machine - a personal viewpoint

Man versus Machine - the aftermath

Computers are human too

My first Chess Tournament

Greetings Fellow Chess Enthusiasts. Welcome to my page dedicated to the sport of Kings.

My name is Jose Olivera Jr. I am a fan of chess. I have been playing chess since I was about 11 years old but I have never taken it very seriously until just recently. When my friends and I used to play chess, we never really thought about checkmating the king. Our style of play was to wipe out all the pieces first and then we would remember suddenly, OOPS, we are supposed to be trying to checkmate the king.

I have learned the hard way during some of my matches that playing aggressively as I love to do has both it's good and bad points and you have to make a decision early in a match when time is of a great concern which style that you are going to try to play against your opponent across the virtual chess table and which style will give you the best chances of winning the match. Recently I have begun to play 5 minute games and I enjoy them a lot since you have to move quickly and accurately which adds yet another element to the game.

I am still very much learning opening move theory at the time that I am writing this and I hope to improve as I go along. While I know most of the major openings and the objectives behind the moves, I still get hit with occasional openings from left field which sometimes confuse me. So whenvever I get hit with some strange opening that I have not seen before, I try to develop my pieces and later on, I will see if I can find the opening in one of my chess books.

As for internet chess servers, there are several of them that are available but I tend to play lately on FICS ( Free Internet Chess Server ). I originally started playing on ICC ( The Internet Chess Club ) and I was on there for 2 years. My ICC account expired a few months ago so I decided to give them a try. While ICC seems to be the more active club and seems to have a lot of GMs and IMs playing all the time, the players that I met on FICS seem to be tougher overall as it took me a while to find a level where I am now comfortable at.

Certainly playing on a Internet Chess Server of one type or another has been a learning experience. I did see my rating improve over the 2 year span while I was on ICC and I would no longer leave pieces hanging or make a move where a piece was captured without compensation.  It is also great that I can now find a game anytime that I desire without having to go out of way. Trying to find a game over the board is kind of difficult for me locally because there is only one chess club that I am aware of in South Florida and the players that I have met there are quite good and while I have won the occasional game or two there, most of the time is spent reviewing why I lost. While losing a match can be painful, it does show you where you need to improve or what your weaknesses are and you try to use these matches to teach you not to make the same mistake again. Still, I rather play someone where I can win the same number of matches as I lose. In addition, the particular club that I am thinking of is kind of out of my way to get to.

Anyway, that is why I like Internet Chess for the most part. I tend to play speed games of 5 minutes like I mentioned before and I will occasionally play a longer match from time to time although I tend not to play as many long matches as I used to when I first started playing on chess servers because I sometimes wonder who I am really playing ( a person or a person using a computer). But that I will possibly discuss in another future section on this web page.

Anyway, check out either ICC or if you are on a budget, FICS is also available. There are also clubs on yahoo and the internet gaming zone but those don't seem to allow you to limit the skill level of the person that you are playing so that is one of the disadvantages to those clubs. Therefore I tend to think that for most players like myself, it is better to play on either ICC or FICS. The only thing you need to do is to download some software from their site in order to play on their servers. The software is free and games are free on FICS but ICC costs money if you want to play for more than one week as they only allow one week free trial ( one month if you are a member of USCF). Anyway have fun!

Chess is believed to have originated back in India around the 6th Century A.D. Chess derives itself from the game Chaturanga - created by an Indian philosopher to symbolize 2 armies at war (Chatuanga means "four limbed" as in 4 arms of the army). Gradually over the next 500 years, the game grew in popularity and spread rapidly throughout the world, beginning first with Asia, and later followed by China and Japan.

Chess was not introduced in Europe until sometime between 700 and 900 A.D. by the Muslims, as well as the Moors in Spain and the Saracen traders in Italy. Chess popularity grew at such a rapid rate that initially the church opposed it since they felt that chess was a gambling type of game and not appropriate for their members. In medieval Europe, chess was still being played according to the rules of the Muslim game called Shatranj. It wasn't until the 2nd half of the 15th century, when the new rules of castling, en passant were introduced and the increase in power of both the queen and the bishop that the modern game that we know of today came into being. Since then, the game of chess has spread to the entire world over and the rules have not changed since except to include time limits as a new way to win a match. I understand that there was an attempt a few years back to allow the queen to have the same powers as the knight in addition to the  powers of the rook and bishop which she currently enjoys but the proposal was turned down.

Recently I came in contact with a site that deals with the origins of chess from a different perspective. I don't wish to mention too much less I spoil the surprise. Therefore, I recommend that you visit goddesschess . There are other topics there as well which I found quite interesting.

This is a listing of some of my favorite chess sites on the Internet.  If you have a site that you would like to have listed on this page. please send me a email to ace942@bellsouth.net . Please note that I prefer sites with content more so that sites that are mostly sites to sell chess equipment. If I feel that your site has very little content as compared to the commercial section of your web page, I will not include your site on this list. There are already too many sites that are really just geared towards selling chess products with only a small amount of content.

Enjoy the links!
 
 

Stuart the Chess Maniac's Closet - site with lots of chess links
Steve Pribut's Chess Page
John Knudsen's Correspondence Chess Page
Duif's Guide for Chess fans: Ratings and Titles explained
Glen's Chess Page
Edinborough Chess Club

This week in Chess
Planet Chess
Chess Digest
Chess Life Online
Chess Dominion
The Chess Cafe
Chess Space
Smartchess - Anatoly Karpov's official web site
CheckSoft
Chess Scene - the E-Zine for the Amateur Chess Player
 
 

The World Chess Champions
The Bobby Fischer Home Page
Jose Raoul Capablanca

Chess Trivia
United States Chess Hall of Fame
Chess is Fun
Netchess News
Chess Dictionary
The Theory of Chess Ratings
The Chess Memory
GrandMaster Chess
Spraggett's Chess Wisdom
Chess Humor
The Campbell Report - Chess Humor

I used to wonder if it was possible for a amateur player like myself to beat a computer at it's highest setting. While I understand that computers use a chess program and since chess playing programs are created by imperfect humans, it stands to reason that they do not play perfect chess and thus they can be beaten but someone like myself might not ever win at its strongest setting.

But recently I played a 5 minute speed match against Fritz 5.32 and found that sometimes computers play like human beings too.  Click on the link below to follow the match that I played against Fritz and follow the commentary that I included. It is a weird sort of a match but maybe some of you might find it enjoyable to watch.

You will need to scroll a bit at first in order to get at the controls to move the pieces. I hope to fix this so that it is more easier for you to follow the match.

Fritz loses 5 minute chess match to amateur - story at 11 :)

Update : It seems that Fritz is not the only one that plays like a human being. I played a game against Crafty V16.13 where it allowed me to draw the game on a silly knight move that threatened a pawn and it allowed me to play it over and over thus getting a draw by repetition. Here is the game:

Crafty was not crafty enough in this one :)

Back to the Main Page