World Chess Network - Overview

Overview

The World Chess Network provided a number of services to its subscribers. Besides the facilitation of online chess games, it also provided members with a method of conducting online chess tournaments. The network used the Elo rating system for rating its players. The World Chess Network also conducted professional grandmaster tournaments, allowing spectators to watch these matches live, with professional commentaries. It also advertised itself as a venue for real-world chess players seeking to improve their playing skills. The network facilitated private chess lessons from professional players, usually via arrangement with the professional player with an additional cost. It also provided a service called Banter Chess; With this service, spectators watched two Masters play a game while explaining their moves and thoughts out loud, allowing the spectators to learn how high-ranked players conduct their games. Lectures about playing chess professionally were also given by the many Masters on the site.

For players not currently playing games, the network offered regular chat channels so that players could schedule or discuss games, among other things.

The interface used by the website was the a proprietary chess software called Mgichess. The software has arrangements to try to detect players using the assistance of chess programs. It does this by detecting changes in window input focus, based on information on the activities being undertaken on the computer that the program is able to detect.