Pure Ratings

Pure ratings are the purest, most accurate online ratings available because in each group, everyone plays exactly the same time control and players have no control over the pairings. There are three categories of Pure ratings:

1-minute -- You have 1 minute to complete the entire game
5-minute -- You have 5 minutes to complete the entire game
15-minute -- You have 15 minutes to complete the entire game

Basic

The easiest way to start a Pure rating game is to click one of the Pure-play buttons in the main tool bar:

Get ready! After you click a Pure-play button, you will automatically enter the playing pool and your game will start shortly. You will also receive a notification in the main console which says:

Okay, you will be paired and the game will start automatically, please be ready

If you click more than one button, you will be paired in more than one pool, so be careful and check which game started. If you need to abandon your request for a pure game, click the OPEN button to the right of the pure-play buttons twice and you will be removed from the pool.

After your game ends, you can re-enter the same rating pool by clicking the "Play Again" button directly on the game board:

If you automatically enter into examine mode when your game ends, instead of the Play Again buttons, you will have Examine buttons to forward through the game:

If you would rather have the opportunity to use the Play Again button and not examine your recently-completed game, you need to click: set examine 0 to set the server examine variable 0.

Advanced

You may wish to play other time controls for a casual game or to match a player of your choice. The different ways to play find other games is explained in the How to start a game section. Popular time controls can also be found in the Quick Commands list. There is a Quick Command Button directly in the main toolbar:

Expert

To fully customize your playing experience on ICC, you may wish to customize seek formulas, create additional custom Quick Commands, use the command line interface and control who you play and do not play on the server.

Formulas describes how to setup advanced formulas.
Creating Quick Commands describes how to create personalized quick commands for time controls you prefer to play.
Main console describes how to interact with the server so you can enter advanced game requests.
No play list describes how to avoid playing players in the regular categories. Pure ratings do not allow the use of a noplay list