Um, things that I don't like about ICC right now:
-They did away with the 45/45 pool and replaced it with a 25/10 pool. The 25/10 pool should have been added to the list of existing pools. Doing away with the 45/45 pool makes finding a game for one far less easy. Still, they have a 45/45 and 90/30 league that's overly active so it's not a huge issue.
- No restriction on multi accounting and you can pay to have a rating reset. Although once again, it's a pay server and nobody really would want their ratings reset unless they were pretty pitiful in the first place.
- It has a good size population. There are a lot of players logging in and out of it. Keep in mind that most people don't stay logged into Blitzin or Dasher when they're inactive so the list of "active users", when floating around 2500, is actually quite high. Still, I would like to see it's population increase and it does seem like some new blood has signed up recently.
Other than that, there are a lot of positives. Engines and DGT boards integrate with Blitzin better than anywhere else and it's very easy to save/store games and enter them into your database. The command based Blitzin does allow for more actual functionality than any other chess server and you can play poker, checkers, etc with a click of a button. They do also have the most chess variants. They have like 30+ different variants.
Their videos are probably the best in the business and their databases you can access are filled with just a ridiculous amount of games you can pull right up and run your engine on in seconds. The pairing pools are one of my favorite things there and it makes finding a game and keeping continuous play going for hours very easy. You can be in multiple pools at once and run multiple seeks at once. It's very practical and convenient.
They have an affiliation with the USCF now and, like
Chess.com, have rated online blitz and rapid tournaments a couple of nights a week. They have tournament servers that run 24/7 for all different time controls and organizing and joining a tournament of any time control is very straightforward. Of course, none of this is as user friendly as
Chess.com is but that's the price you pay for more functionality with software.
Last but certainly not least is the competition level. The pairing pools on ICC are hands down known as the toughest places to play games on the internet. Additionally, it's the most top heavy server in that it has more top titled players over 2300+ than any other server online. It's just been that way for years and still is that way.
Basically, it is the most all around "high tech" and competitive server. Still, for all but the more serious and competitive players, Lichess is going to give them more games against players at their level and is going to do it in a user friendly and intuitive browser. Same with
Chess.com. So, of course, in the end it's all going to come down to what a player's expectations and requirements are out of a chess server.
As someone else pointed out: Right now all of our servers available to us are pretty good and have something to offer. It's actually a great time for internet chess.
