Chess.com VS ICC- A Comparison

The Internet Chess Club and Chess.com are two of the awesomest chess servers in the whole world. In this blog I will compare my experiences on both servers, as I also have a account on ICC. First, I'll start with good things on both servers.

The Internet Chess Club has lots and lots of titled players and tons of GMs including Hikaru Nakamura, Dmitry Andreiken, Alexander Grichuk, Levon Aronian, and Gata Kamsky, all players above 2700 FIDE. ICC also has many players who play long games of 25 minutes or longer. Once I was challenged to a game where each side started with 600 (!) minutes, with a 300 (!) second increment. ICC also has Thematic, Chess960, and Variant tournaments, such something which chess.com doesn't have.

Chess.com, however, has many interesting and fun features including blogging, endless quiz, groups, team matches, correspondence chess, and team vote chess games to name a few. Chess.com also has many learning features including rating stat charts, game analysis, chess.com tv, videos, chess mentor, chess tactics, and articles. However, most of these are unusable unless you purchase a premium membership, which many people are unwilling to do.

Now, moving on to the bad parts of each server. ICC has little to no social features, which many people love, and it is all playing chess, no fun stuff like endless quiz. Chess.com, however, has a lot of computer cheaters, and slower servers than ICC, because they have to manage so many people. Chess.com also has ads, unless you buy premium membership.

The membership costs are worth comparing too. One year on ICC is $69.95, and one year Diamond Membership on Chess.com is $99. I recommend ICC for more serious players, and Chess.com for players who just wanna have some fun.