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Not really the same environment but the Internet Chess Club has also amazing ways to detect if you are cheating. Some people were caught after they got help from the Fritz software - it seems by analyzing the way you play (long games from, say, people who are not registered FIDE IM,GM etc...), ICC is able to detect that you are playing above your abilities...

Gamers don't need support contracts,

I thought that was how many of the MMORPGS work nowadays. The game client is free, but you enter into a monthly contract to access the resources on the servers.

For another example, chess is about as copyright and license free as a game can be, but the Internet Chess Club charges $60 for a 1-year membership and purports "over 200,000 memberships sold." They don't have exclusive rights over anything inherent to the game of chess, or even internet chess. I don't know if their clients are proprietary, but I know they are free and there are open source versions. What they make money off of is support they provide in form of connecting people, hosting games, information, etc.

and they'll go nuts if you try to cram advertising down their throats.

What's up with all those internet flash games?

I wouldn't say the closed source model doesn't have its own merits, but if the argument is really that it is best (for gaming or otherwise) I hope that means the government doesn't need to sweep in and save it with price floors or whatever the article is suggesting we do to fix these "non-flaws".

As a completely off-topic aside, his brother Daniel Sleator is a CS prof who re-wrote the internet chess server code, morphing it into what is now the internet chess club.
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I'm always serious, never more so than when I'm being flippant. -- Cr. Ziller

They still do. People with accounts at FICS or ICC and you can choose to be notified when a buddy signs on.

I'd call that prior art.

Internet Chess (ICC) is extremely addicting although this account is a smidge jive:
The Internet Chess Addict's Home

Another addicting game that saps my time when I'm waiting for my next internet chess opponent to arrive is BlogShares. A market simulation game where you can aspire to "own" Slashdot and other blogs on the internet.

I've just created another legion of internet addicts, so sorry.

The article says that no unix chess client comes with integrated timestamping, which is a good reason to plug mine - Jin, which does.

Also, I'm an ICC admin and I can tell you that we're looking into the issue and will probably publish an official response later.

It seems this guy is attempting to patent what was previously implemented in the IGS, the NNGS, and numerous online chess servers.

It seems odd to me that it didn't occur to Mr. Goldberg that some else had probably done most of what his patents claimed before 1998. Online play, complete with subscription fees, ranking systems, and player configuration dates back to the Eighties.

"The Internet Chess Club traces its roots to a loosely organized community of chess players who recognized the potential for Internet chess in the 1980s. In 1992, a small team of skilled programmers began to rewrite the software to produce an elegant system that was immediately welcomed by on-line chess players everywhere. It has been operating continuously under the same management ever since."

Chess grandmasters do not tune their skills by playing lots of games ... Most GMs learn by reading books and replaying of important games.

Question from mpjaya: - How many programmers worked on the project Deep Blue in total?
CrazyBird: it was a three-person project, Murray, Joe and I.

Question from Frantic: According to what was published DB was evaluating 200 million positions per second (vs 2.5 to 5 million for the 8-way Simmons server running Deep Fritz). How fast would be Beep Blue today if the project continued?

CrazyBird: if we redo the chip in say, 0.13 micron, and with a improved architecture, it should be possible to do one billion nodes/sec on a single chip.
CrazyBird: so a trillion nodes/sec machine is actually possible today.
CrazyBird: i was planning to shock kasparov should he [have] agree[d] to a new match:).[1]

[0.09 micron gives you something like 40-fold increase in area density and 6-fold increase in speed, which means through technology alone, a single chip can be more powerful than the entire Deep Blue. Put that on a CompactFlash card and plug it into a PocketPC...]

Once you register, you can improve your chess with hundreds of Web-based exercises, specifically designed to complement my book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess.

Come join us! Register a name, install our easy-to-use software, and then use that to connect to our playing site. You can try it for free! With over 25,000 paying members from all over the world, Chessclub.com is the longest running and most vibrant chess community on the internet. You can play games and get a rating, watch grandmasters play while discussing the game, take lessons, play in tournaments, play in simultaneous exhibitions, try chess variants like bughouse, crazyhouse and atomic, play chess programs of all levels, and much more.

Determining whether a player is a human or a computer is a very real problem that has been researched extensively.
Take the Internet Chess Club, for example. If you ever wanted to watch grandmasters play live, or even play against one, that's where you go. They offer a 7-day free trial (actually, it's 14 because you can extend your trial for another 7 days). Anyway, computer assistance is the most problematic form of abuse on the service. Normally, if you're going to be using a computer chess program to assist you while playing, you are required to create a "computer account". The ICC allows computer players on their service because it provides an inexhaustible source of very strong opponents. In fact, if you log on and take a look at the highest rated players, you might be surprised to find a long list of computers before a single grandmaster. Keep in mind, though, that we're talking about playing conditions very different from the famous Kasparov Vs. Deep Blue Games. The computers on ICC have extraordinarily high ratings due to the very fast time controls (most common are either 1 or 5 minutes per player per game), and the rating boost they get from all the games they win against weaker players--after all, they're practically playing 24 hours a day!
Now, I have no idea how many players are cheating by using a computer chess program, but I bet that many have. Imagine playing a game against a high rated opponent--meaning that, if you win, you'll gain a load of rating points--and having a grandmaster strength player at your disposal. Wouldn't you be tempted to ask for hints every once in a while;)?
The ICC has released a statement regarding dishonest computer assistance. In it they explain that they have a program that analyizes games to detect computer-like play. Of course, they protect the details of how the system works to prevent anybody from disguising their abuse. Also, they have chat-bot online all the time to whome you report any suspected cheating. Although, I imagine the majority of those reports are from unskilled players like myself after losing to a pro;)

Determining whether a player is a human or a computer is a very real problem that has been researched extensively.
Take the Internet Chess Club, for example. If you ever wanted to watch grandmasters play live, or even play against one, that's where you go. They offer a 7-day free trial (actually, it's 14 because you can extend your trial for another 7 days). Anyway, computer assistance is the most problematic form of abuse on the service. Normally, if you're going to be using a computer chess program to assist you while playing, you are required to create a "computer account". The ICC allows computer players on their service because it provides an inexhaustible source of very strong opponents. In fact, if you log on and take a look at the highest rated players, you might be surprised to find a long list of computers before a single grandmaster. Keep in mind, though, that we're talking about playing conditions very different from the famous Kasparov Vs. Deep Blue Games. The computers on ICC have extraordinarily high ratings due to the very fast time controls (most common are either 1 or 5 minutes per player per game), and the rating boost they get from all the games they win against weaker players--after all, they're practically playing 24 hours a day!
Now, I have no idea how many players are cheating by using a computer chess program, but I bet that many have. Imagine playing a game against a high rated opponent--meaning that, if you win, you'll gain a load of rating points--and having a grandmaster strength player at your disposal. Wouldn't you be tempted to ask for hints every once in a while;)?
The ICC has released a statement regarding dishonest computer assistance. In it they explain that they have a program that analyizes games to detect computer-like play. Of course, they protect the details of how the system works to prevent anybody from disguising their abuse. Also, they have chat-bot online all the time to whome you report any suspected cheating. Although, I imagine the majority of those reports are from unskilled players like myself after losing to a pro;)

There are a number of free alternatives of course.

And another thing...

The article really ticked me off. It mentions Google repeatedly, and then it basically says advertising doesn't work on the Internet. Hello??? McFly??! Google's advertising mechanism is very effective. THEY MAKE MONEY FROM IT AND THEY DON'T PISS OFF THIER USERS DOING SO.

The reason most advertising on the Internet doesn't work has nothing to do with it being "non-linear" and therefore "different" from TV and radio. Internet advertising doesn't work because the ad-makers SUCK. PERIOD.

Plus, if a site has something really worthwhile--to which there is no decent free alternative--people will sign up and pay the site directly for a subscription/membership. A la The Internet Chess Club (and others).

And as soon as the advertising "wizards" out there get their combined HEADS out of their combined ASSES, we might see some effective advertising on the Internet and thereby realize that ad revenue CAN support sites.

Longer discussion by GM: Full Article on Usenet
Preceeding found on Page from Internet Chess Club (ICC)

This wheel is already invented. freechess.org has enabled (human|computer) vs (human|computer) chess over the internet since 1995. Their now commercial parent chessclub.com started in 1992. They sometimes have tournaments for homemade chess programs. Tim Mann's XBoard/Zippy is a nice stable client if you want a GUI for your brainchild; RoboFICS is good if you don't.

Someone on freechess.org usually sets up a mirror game for people to observe when there's a human championship. Maybe they'll do the same for the computer championship.

I think you merely failed to grasp the excellent game design that went into many C64 games. Perhaps you prefer eye candy over content.

I, for one, spent a ton of time gaming on my C64. If it wasn't Gunship, Archon or some RPG, I was online with Q-Link playing chess. I play tons of chess online, but no experience, be it ICC or Yahoo, or Chessmaster matches the intimate chess community on Q-Link. Of course, this was until the night they shut it down without warning to use the hardware to start something called America Online.

The fact is, people have been babbling with the same complaints when radio came along, then TV, then arcade and computer games, and most recently, the internet. It is a parent's job to regulate what their kids do, not a corporation's job to limit children's options.

There have been many, many, many variations on chess created in the last century; the reason you've never heard of them is that chess players view them as a curiosity and distraction, but not as anything useful.

No, the reason you've never heard about them is you haven't been listening. First of all, chess itself is a variant. Likely the original "chess" was what we now call Chaturanga, which dates back to 7th century India. This evolved, as variants continually cropped and died out, but occasionally replaced chess itself. Soon Chaturanga became Shatranj, and so on. Rules were changed or added, one by one. Pawns became able to move two spaces instead of one on their first move. En passant was introduced. Castling began as well. The Indian pieces were replaced with European medieval figure representations. And so forth.

But it doesn't stop at historical variants... there are literally thousands of chess variants played regularly around the world. You can find many in the wonderful book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants or on The Chess Variant Pages. Many variants can be played online at chess servers like The Free Internet Chess Server (telnet freechess.org 5000), The Middle East Wild Internet Server (telnet chess.mds.mdh.se 5555), The Internet Chess Club, etc.

Chess Variants I have played and enjoy:
Standard, Blitz, Lightning, Quantum, Hourglass, Bughouse, 3 Board Bughouse, 4 Board Bughouse, 5 Board Bughouse, Aerial Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, Atomic, Wild 5, Wild 10, Kriegspiel, Progressive, Magnetic, Fairy Tale, Alice, Fischer Random, Random, Thai, Shogi, Xiangqi, 3 Player Chess, 4 Player Chess, Cylindrical, Infinite, Capablanca's, Mutation, Absorption, Inverse Capture, Rifle, Kamikaze, Extinction, Take-All, Rotation, Marseillais, Stealth, Hostage, Insane, Ultima and Command.

Many of these variants were created by world class chess players to add another dimension to the game. For example, Fischer Random was invented by Bobby Fischer to eliminate opennings from the game. Capablanca created Capablanca's Chess. The list goes on and on.

My all time favorite chess variant is bughouse, wherein you have two boards side by side and a partner who plays the opposite color from you... you pass your partner the pieces you capture and he does likewise, then as your move you may place one of these pieces on the board instead of playing a normal move with the pieces already on the board. It is a very social game and is much more fun than chess itself.

Check out my webpage for more information on variants, chess servers, and other chess stuff: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cem9314/chess/.

You have a leet userid.
Go to ICC if you haven't already :)

On the other hand, I'd say it is like chess moves, only rather than normal chess, it's a game of Kriegspiel, in which you don't get to see your opponent's pieces, only your own...

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