General Game Sites

Chess

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General Game Sites

MSN

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(October 2003) To get started on MSN, you need to download, install, and run the 'Essential Zone.com File'. Registration is not required, but it is encouraged to take advantage of the main features.

Select a game room
Entering a game room takes two steps. First you select from three modes of play. Play with others : You can play as a guest without sign-in but you can't chat. Competitive play (rated) : Requires a sign-in. Tournaments & special events : Also requires a sign-in. We had one annoying technical glitch on the introductory pages. Every time we accessed a blue page on the service, we received a 'Runtime error has occurred' message ('Object expected'). This happened at least once on every page. It seemed to cause no real problem, although the error message window had to be closed each time. The errors stopped once we selected a table. When we accessed the blue pages from a different computer, we received no errors, but the pages did not display correctly.
After selecting a mode of play you select a room.
The rooms for the mode are listed on a new page with the number of players in each room. The rooms in Competitive play are listed according to the USCF's class system, from Class C (Rated Under 1600) to Grand Master (Rated Above 2400). Under Competitive play and Tournaments you can view your rating and statistics. At the time this article was written, there were '313133 Ranked Players'. The top rated player was NeVErB, rated 4303 With a career score of +651-0=0 (!).
Select a table
Your selected room opens in a new window with a second (optional) 'Getting Started' window. Close that second window to continue. A list of players in the room is on the right. To see a player's rating, click on the name and hold. General chat is at the bottom. You can play a waiting player, host a new table, or watch an ongoing game (known in chess lingo as 'kibitz', especially when associated with remarks by the spectator). A white thumb means a player is ready and waiting. Click on an empty chair and then on the 'Start' button to get your own white thumb. The player on the left of the table has the White pieces.
Play!
Before you can play, you need to set the clock, which has a fixed time for the game; there is no increment after each move. You can discuss the time with your opponent using chat or just set your clock to see if your opponent follows. While playing, we noted a few minor annoyances -- 'beep after each move' didn't work; the black pieces on brown squares had insufficient contrast; and after a rated game the rating and statistics were not updated immediately -- but none of these rendered the service unusable.