Finding an Opponent

There are several ways to start playing. The easiest are the Find Opponent and Offers Graph widgets.

Find Opponent

Click on the Find Opponent button and you'll see a dialogue from which you can challenge other players for a game. Select how long you'd like to play for, and other options, then press the Make Offer button. Options:

• Time Base time for game in minutes.
• Increment Seconds added to your time with each move.
• Rated game The result of rated games affect your rating. Unrated games make no adjustment.
• Confirm manually Allows you to confirm or deny a challenge.
• Color Select whether to play White or Black or Auto.
• Limit rating between Only play those with a given rating interval.
• Filter with formula On FICS every player can set a formula that describes what challenges will be denied automatically. This formula can be enabled by checking this box.

Offers Graph

The Offers Graph button shows all current game offers. Hovering your mouse over a node will show it's details, and clicking a node will request a new game. Sometimes you'll have to be quick though, as FICS can be quite busy. Middle clicking FICS will hide/display the Offers, and 'Escape' dismisses thm.

On the graph itself, The y-axis shows the ELO rating of the opponent - higher number means stronger player , while x-axis of the graph plots the time allowed for the game. The first grey line marks standard Blitz timing (5 min., no increment) while the second red line marks the standard Rapid timing (15 min., no increment).

Additionally, the offers use the following coding:

• Green: offers from computer opponents
• Blue: offers from human opponents
• Red: games with a total time of more than 1 hour
• Gray: anonymous offers, i.e. offers from guest logins
• Boxes: unrated games
• Circles: rated games

Note FICS also offers a bunch of chess variants like bughouse or crazyhouse. Playing these games is not supported, but they can be observed and examined.