Dear computer chess friends, 
Computer chess in the Machine Room is a great thing. Here you can meet like-minded people and compare your skills of configurating engines, chess programs and opening books. For a fair and friendly competition, some rules are necessary which follow an easy principle: those who treat others badly or break a rule will be banned from the server.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask a system operator or ChessBase employee in the chat, to be recognized by the entry “ChessBase“ or “Sysop“ under their status in the player list.

Requirements for rank Knight in the Machine Room:

You must have at least six visiting days and play 100 rated games, furthermore the personal profile data have to be completed
Requirements for rank Bishop in the Machine Room:
To become a Bishop, you must have played at least 3,000 rated games. Also, the personal profile data have to be completed. In order to keep the rank, you have to play one rated game at least every 3 days.
Requirements to be included in the top list:
To be included in the list, at least 500 games must have been played. To remain in the list, you have to play one rated game at least every 3 days.
Etiquette:
1.   It is considered appropriate to enter the technical data of your own hardware under “Personal Information“. (Menu Edit-> User Data-> Personal Information).
2.   Please make sure that your program sends its assessment and calculation depth during the game (to be adjusted under “Playing Mode>>Send Evaluations“).
3.   If you notice that you have a strong lag (to be measured by pinging the server with the “Ping Button“), you should refrain from short-time rated games.
Creating a Nickname:

  1. When creating nicks for use on the server one is expected to exercise prudence and common sense. No user on the server shall be permitted to use a nick which is obscene, controversial (i.e. Saddam Hussein), or sexual in nature. Failure to comply with this rule will result in immediate deletion of the nick in question. 
  2. Personal Profiles are not to contain vulgar language of any kind or pictures which may be considered offensive to other users. Please remember that this is a family oriented server and there are children who play here.
  3. When creating a new nick please keep in mind that no unregistered account will be allowed to play in engine room,Only Valid registered accounts .New users will have 5 days to enter the serial number provided in the manual of the booklet,or via server serial purchase.Unless otherwise arranged with sysop or chessbase empolyee.

Compulsory rules:

  1. Chatting on a chess server has the same legal status as any verbal or written communication between individuals. Insults have legal consequences, in particular, severe insults and incitement may result in criminal prosecution. Every player can be unambiguously identified through his IP address which is stored by the server. Apart from legal consequences, insults of any kind will be punished by complete bans without further notice, the duration of which is subject to the severe ness of the offence.
  2. Here, like everywhere else, it is forbidden to trade commercial programs or engines or to use traded or bootlegged software or engines. Contraventions will be punished, at least by a complete permanent banning of all access accounts and other legal action may be taken against the offender as deemed appropriate. Excluded are, of course, freeware or shareware programs as well as the Nalimov Tablebases which are not subject to any copyright.
  3. Boosting an Elo rating by losing intentionally (padding) is forbidden, regardless whether the loss occurs against your own access accounts, friends or relatives. As soon as such boosting is noticed by a ChessBase employee, all accounts of the involved players will be immediately banned. If in doubt, please play friendly games which are not Elo rated.
  4. Manipulating your own system (e.g. lag) is unfair and leads to banning. Please schedule lengthy uploads or downloads to a time other than when you are playing.

Technical things

  1. We can not be held responsible for program crashes due to over clocking, as over clocking causes extreme heat and willcrash programs.
  2. To inhibit elo incest and thus to improve statistical meaning of ratings, formulas which exclude players who are less than 300 elo points weaker than yourself are automatically overridden by the server. Set yourself on "Pause" to avoid automatical game starts.
  3. Your computer elo rating is displayed in the rating column if you have an engine loaded and are ready to play.

Start computer game:

  1. Menu File -> Playing mode
  2. Choose option Computer
  3. Click on Engine button, choose engine and opening book, and adjust hash tables.
  4. Activate the option Automatic challenge if you want a challenge to be sent to all other players in the computer room.
  5. Clock: Adjust the time limit. All games get rated.
  6. Activate the option Automatic accepts if you want challenges to be accepted automatically.

If you want to challenge players manually, leave the option Automatic challenge inactive. The mode Automatic accepts accepts all challenges not diverging more than 30% from your default time limit in automatic challenges.
If you want to actively participate in a computer game yourself, choose the option option Centaur. Here you can enter or analyse moves during a game.
The playing modes Computer and Centaur only work in the computer room. All games (Computer or Centaur) get rated for the computer rating.