To play chess complete this form and then check your email to activate your account. If your school is a member then after you have completed your account registration, you can go to the schools page and join your school team.
Take special care when you enter your email address as if you make a mistake then you will never recieve your activation code!
Guest member: Everyone is automatically a guest member when they first register. Guest members can play games but all their games are un-official, that is, they do not count towards player ratings. (N.B. This means that players cannot create addiitional guest accounts to artificially boast their rating.) Also, note that guest members may be deleted after 30 days of inactivity, although you can create another guest membership later if you wish. Guest Members are indicated by the term "(not reg)" in the Challenge Screen.
School Member: If your school is a member of the server, than you can become a school member. This is important, as it means that you can play in school matches, and also means that you will be able to play "official" games and hence get a rating.
Life Member: As a life Member, you can play "official games" and therefore get a rating, also your account will not be deleted after 30 days. As this server is aimed at schools and school teams, we do not expect many "Life Members" but the option is there if you want to join in this way. Some of our friends who helped to play-test this server and help iron out the bugs are effectively "Life Members".
You can play on this server as a Guest member at no cost if you wish! Otherwise...
If your school is registered then you can join at no cost, complete the form above and then go to the "Schools" page to join your school team. If your school is not a member then the membership fee for individual members is £10 or $15 (US) for the life of this server.
Schools can join for a fee of £30 or $45. All pupils and staff of registered schools can join and play at no cost. Schools registration lasts for 3 years although no refunds of membership fees will be given as long as the server has been available for at least 12 calandar months.
For details of how to pay, please
, including your username and/or School details. We currently accept UK cheques and Paypal transactions.
Pricing policy:
The subscription is kept low so that it is easily affordable by all schools who wish to join. Individual members pay a once only fee that entitles them to play on the server for as long as it is available. Schools pay a membership fee that entitles any pupil or member of staff to play on the server for a period of up to three years (albeit only 12 months access is covered by the money-back guarantee).
Guarantee:
There is no guarantee that this site will always be available. However, if it does get taken off-line for any reason, we will reimbuse all members a portion of any fees paid according to the following scale.
1. Member has had at least twelve months access since paying subscription fees - no refund.
2. Member has not been able to access the chess server for at least 12 months since paying subscription fees - one twelve of the subscription fee will be returned for each month less than twelve that the server has not been accessible over the three years following the processing of the payment.
Terms and Conditions:
1. The Schools Internet Chess Server (SICS) is to be used as a method of playing remote chess matches against other human opponents. Players should not play matches with the aid of computer chess programs, or allow other players to play their moves for them.
2. All players join and play at their own risk, and the liability of SICS is solely restricted to refunds of membership fees is the server becomes unplayable according to the scale set out in the guarantee.
3. Any member that harasses another member may have their membership terminated. The administrators of SICS reserve the right to terminate any membership at any time. If a membership is terminated, then a portion of the membership may be refunded according to the published scale set out in the guarantee.
4. SICS may change a member school's password at any time, giving the school at least one weeks notice.
5. Individuals may register and begin to play non-rated games before paying a membership fee, but SICS reserves to right to delete all player details and games if payment has not been processed with 30 days of registration.
6. SICS will backup the server database on a regular basis, but players must accept that there may be some instances when we have to install an earlier database which will mean that some recent moves may not have been saved.
7. The chess server engine is not guaranteed to be bug free. If you encounter a bug, please send details of the game including a move history to the site administrators. Details of know bugs will be posted on this site.
The administrators will attempt to correct any game that is hit by a bug such as falsely recognising "check-mate" for example.
Any changes to our Terms and Conditions will be posted on the Schools' Internet Chess Server news forums.
This site is powered by WebChess 0.8.3 and is published under the GNU GPL (GNU General Public License).
Additional code was written by the CompWebChess project of Felipe Rayel.
Although this site was designed by Ironfist, significant elements are due to the work of the WebChess and CompWebChess project teams.