I wondered if anyone here played on FICS and would like to play me?

I play lots and lots of blitzes, but I know should take up some slower games in order to improve... I thought it would be nice to play someone from the forum, I'd also very appreciate any piece of advice or comments if they come to your head (if not that's fine!)

I'm a beginner, but not hopeless.

Thank you

I would be happy to play you sometime. I admit that this will probably not happen because I am not on line much. maybe though. As far as advice goes I don't know how to write on fics even though others do. I don't know much about that site but sometime probably we could arrange a 20 minit game.

If you want to play slower games trying to improve your game, you should try playing correspondance games. Try Redhotpawn.com

It takes some getting used to, but I'm really enjoying it. If you want to speed up the game a bit, make your settings: 1 day per move and 0 days timebank. Yes, one move per day, although if you get the right person you can play multiple moves per day. The downside is that people generally slow down their play when they start to lose.

I think playing correspondence now and then can be fun, but the best way to improve is to play "real time", like on FICS.

I'll play you some time. On week days, I'm mostly only available in the evening, after 9 pm EDT (6 pm server time). Let me know when you'd like to play.

--Fromper

How do you find out what is server time? fics is a hull of a lot confusing. The only thing that I figured out how to do is play. At least yahoo is straight forward. I ask because I live in the Pacific Isalands (very big time difference).

People should be on at all times of the day really. It's possible it drops off a little during some hours, but still.

As copied from the FICS startup text:
All times are server times. To check the current server time, use "date".

This gave me the response:
Local time - Sat Aug 23, 12:56 PDT 2008
Server time - Sat Aug 23, 12:56 PDT 2008
GMT - Sat Aug 23, 19:56 GMT 2008

The GMT entry doesn't observe DST though. Well eh we still like FICS better than Yahoo and all those other things because frankly, checkers is more straightforward than chess, but we agree chess is just better

FICS is on west coast USA time (California). As noted above, type "date" will show you the server time, and your local time, provided you've told it what time zone you're in. If you haven't told it that, I honestly don't remember how to do so.

--Fromper

Indeed I just used that "date" command, and it turns out that after 6pm server time translates to "after 2am the next day" for me (since I live in London) But for an insomniac like myself, it's okay on certain days: Fromper, it could be 1. tomorrow, 2. next Friday, and 3. Monday-Thursday the week after (as I only work Fri-Sun that week). Please let me know, I'll be checking this thread/PMs. Thanks!

And as for correspondence chess, yeah I actually prefer some time pressure, and feeling of continuity. I tried it on chess.com but I couldn't get myself to - say - print out a position and muse over it on my way to work or something, I'd just log on, think a little and submit a move so paradoxically I played faster than "normally"

I will gladly play with you. If you want, we can schedule the 40-minutes match (in my opinion, 40 min is the perfect time for a chess battle). What time suites you best?

I am in Zagreb (Croatia), so that we have only 1 hour time difference.

You can send me a PM - evening (around 20:00 GMT) will be fine for me.