School Children - Chess Online

The new online chess club in partnership with the company Chess Cube.
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Nick Thomas
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School Children - Chess Online

Post by Nick Thomas » Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 am

I wondered if anyone knew the best places for young children to play chess online. I run chess clubs in several schools and we have about 600 children who might benefit from a chance to play each other during weekends/holidays. I am ideally looking for:

1) A site where we could have our own permanent private room/channel which I would be prepared to pay a fee for
2) Free for the children
3) If in an open channel it would need to be strongly moderated and controlled
4) Preferably easy to explain the set-up/interface download/interface use

Ideas greatly appreciated...

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John Upham
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by John Upham » Thu Feb 04, 2010 7:58 am

Nick,

Whatever it is, it needs to avoid to use of high level TCP/IP ports which playchess.com and chesscube.com both use. The management of school firewalls in general appears to be outsourced to outfits who charge a fortune to remove a block on any TCP/IP port as was found out a few years ago for playchess.com

I've not port scanned ICC as yet but you need a service that only uses port 80 and port 443.
Last edited by John Upham on Thu Feb 04, 2010 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Adam Raoof
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Adam Raoof » Thu Feb 04, 2010 9:36 am

There is some potentially useful stuff here;

http://www.chesskids.com/play04.shtml

but you could also set up your own playing site just for the kids;

http://www.qlinkuk.com//mkgichessclub/login.php
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Nick Thomas
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Nick Thomas » Thu Feb 04, 2010 1:49 pm

Thanks for both those replies.

Adam said:
but you could also set up your own playing site just for the kids;

http://www.qlinkuk.com//mkgichessclub/login.php
Interested but how does this work?? :?

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Adam Raoof
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MKGI Chess Club

Post by Adam Raoof » Thu Feb 04, 2010 1:54 pm

It's an open-source chess playing server with a pure Web interface. You can install it and configure it to your needs, as in

http://www.chessdual.com/login.php

but for more technical advice I will have to refer you to a colleague - send me an email if you want to talk to him, as he can arrange hosting and will probably help you set this up.
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E Michael White
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by E Michael White » Thu Feb 04, 2010 1:56 pm

An ECF board experienced in how junior chess works, rather than status quo driven, might see an opportunity here.

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John Upham
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Re: MKGI Chess Club

Post by John Upham » Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:53 pm

Adam Raoof wrote:It's an open-source chess playing server with a pure Web interface. You can install it and configure it to your needs, as in

http://www.chessdual.com/login.php

but for more technical advice I will have to refer you to a colleague - send me an email if you want to talk to him, as he can arrange hosting and will probably help you set this up.
Adam,

What time controls does this server allow? Blitz, RapidPlay, Bullet?

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Adam Raoof
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Adam Raoof » Thu Feb 04, 2010 3:20 pm

Adam,

What time controls does this server allow? Blitz, RapidPlay, Bullet?

John
None of the above; this is more like Chessworld.net than the ICC!
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John Upham
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by John Upham » Thu Feb 04, 2010 4:13 pm

Adam Raoof wrote:
Adam,

What time controls does this server allow? Blitz, RapidPlay, Bullet?

John
None of the above; this is more like Chessworld.net than the ICC!
OK, I don't think this will be too attractive for children but maybe I am wrong.
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Michael Bennett » Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:25 pm

My 6-year-old son - who's still a beginner - actually likes playing chess on this server a lot, as he doesn't have the stress of a clock ticking down.
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Adam Raoof
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Adam Raoof » Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:31 pm

Michael Bennett wrote:My 6-year-old son - who's still a beginner -
;-)
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Michael Bennett » Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:49 pm

Yes, he has his moments, but he's still a beginner :D
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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Geoff Chandler » Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:03 pm

Hi Michael,

"My 6-year-old son - who's still a beginner."

In this day with GM's popping up as young as 12 you could say
he is a late starter. ;)

I wish net chess was available when my two were young.
I could not get them away from blasting things on the Commondore or the Atari.

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Re: School Children - Chess Online

Post by Michael Bennett » Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:53 pm

Yes, I'm thankful that PCs only really turned up around the end of my teenage years. I spent many happy hours curled up with a good chess book instead.
Michael Bennett
Hendon Chess Club: http://www.hendonchessclub.com
Golders Green Rapidplays: http://www.goldersgreenchess.blogspot.com

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