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Relay


GENERAL DESCRIPTION - WHAT IS A RELAY?
--------------------------------------

Many of the major chess tournaments played around the world today have live
internet broadcasts of some of their games.  Most of these games can be
relayed on FICS.  Relaying games means that as the moves of the games are
displayed on the official site of the tournament, they are then duplicated in
"Relay" games on FICS.

Relayed games give FICS users a chance to watch and discuss the games with
other FICS users, even though the games are not actually being played on FICS.
This is a lot more fun than just watching the moves on the official site of
the tournament, with no one to chat with about the games, the players, and the
other aspects of the tournament.  Relays on FICS have proven to be quite
popular, especially when the top players in the world are playing.


THE "RELAY" ACCOUNT
-------------------

FICS has a special account, with the handle "Relay."  This account is the home
for the special software that automates most of the functions required for
relaying games on FICS.  For more information about how to watch relayed
games, and how to issue commands to the Relay software, please type the
command:

   finger relay


SOME BASIC COMMANDS FOR RELAY
-----------------------------

To ask Relay to display it's most basic help file, type the command:

   tell relay help

To display a list of all of the tournaments currently being relayed, complete
with a list of all of the games that are being relayed, type the command:

   tell relay listgames

Note: the Relay software has to create and start each relayed game, one game
at a time.  Due to this, when the relay of a new round of a tournament is
first started, it may take several or even many minutes before all of that
tournament's games are listed.  So it's often a good idea to reissue this
command a few minutes after the relay of a given tournament has started.  That
is the way to be sure that you are seeing the complete list of the relayed
games in that tournament.


FICS RELAY WEB PAGE
-------------------

FICS has a web page dedicated to the tournaments being relayed on FICS.  There
you will find a schedule of the tournaments being relayed, a page showing the
results of each round of each tournament (sometimes only the results for the
top players are shown), and a link to the official site of each tournament.
Here is the link to the FICS Relay Web Page:

   http://www.freechess.org/Events/Relay/


RELAY OPERATORS
---------------

Relay Operators are specially designated FICS members who assist with the
relaying of games of major tournaments on FICS.  To learn more about Relay
Operators, please see "help Relay_Operator."


LET US KNOW ABOUT TOURNAMENTS
-----------------------------

FICS will try to relay as many tournaments as possible, including all the
major ones.  If you know of a tournament that you would like to see relayed,
please email us at:

   relay@freechess.org


SEE ALSO
--------

finger     games     relay_operator     tell


AUTHORS
-------

Created: 15 January 2009 mattuc
Last Modified: 1 February 2009 mattuc

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