Checkmate, Beth Harmon

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A commercial boom of sorts took place for the casual players and beginners with Chessmaster and Yahoo. These early programs were weak, the playing interfaces unattractive and inferior. The average player never gave them a 2nd look.

The real boom took place in the late 70,s early 80’s in the U.S. when sponsors and organizers were found that started to put on Tournaments that attracted large numbers of players competing for big$. ICC and later PlayerChess in 1992 were the 1st online sites of note to be played on by serious players. At the same time Fritz was developed. The 1st engine of real note.

We’ll have to wait and see if this Beth Harmon phenomenon is anything more than a passing fad. What we see are people watching streams but how many are actually playing more than a few games?

ICC didn't exist until 1995. It was a commercialized version of ICS that was created in 1992.  There was no boom attributed to ICS, because it and later ICC and FICS were telnet sites, not websites, and many members played without even the benefit of a GUI.  Early on these places pretty much appealed to a select group of people (many of whom were techies rather than serious players) willing to traverse the complexities of a command driven telnet protocol.  Yahoo Chess, which started around 1998 was probably the first chess site that appealed to a widespread audience. It had a beautiful interface but wasn't a particularly pleasant place unless you want to play a friend in a private room..  I never heard of PlayerChess, unless you mean playchess.com but it didn't exist pre-1995 when IE was introduced - and probably closer to 2000. 

Here is some discussion about the Queen's Gambit:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=76047

Meant ICS (FICS) and not ICC and obviously Playchess which offered Fritz thru ChessBase as an incentive to sign up. Perhaps some thought Yahoo interface nice. It’s concept of separate rooms / finding opponents matched all it’s other many games.It’s appeal was for beginners and the casual players who played any number of games there. Nobody I knew played there but very few places to play online. Back then it just didn’t have any great appeal for players on the tournament circuits or the popular local clubs. I just don’t think Yahoo chess contributed to any “boom” per say. Players took up the game for other reasons than the early days of internet chess which frankly wasn’t much good all the way around.

Thanks!  Good read.  I agree with most of the comments there.