Can I use XBoard to play a game of chess with another human?
The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in real time using XBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a game there. Two copies of XBoard cannot communicate with each other directly. Instructions on how to get started with Internet chess are included with the XBoard distribution. The network addresses included in the XBoard distribution may not always be current. The oldest and largest ICS is the Internet Chess Club at chessclub.com, which now has a fee for registered use, but still allows free unregistered use. There are also many newer sites with no fees, using the Free Internet Chess Server implementation (FICS). Some current FICS sites are freechess.org (the most active) and eics.daimi.aau.dk. On all these machines, the port number to use is 5000.
The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in real time using XBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a game there. Two copies of XBoard cannot communicate with each other directly. Instructions on how to get started with Internet chess are included with the XBoard distribution. The network addresses included in the XBoard distribution may not always be current. The oldest and largest ICS is the Internet Chess Club at chessclub.com, which now has a fee for registered use, but still allows free unregistered use. There are also many newer sites with no fees, using the Free Internet Chess Server implementation (FICS). Some current FICS sites are freechess.org (the most active) and eics.daimi.aau.dk. On all these machines, the port number to use is 5000. Note: If you don’t have network connectivity to any ICS site, you can run your own server using the FI
