Holiday Bot Non-Speedrun

It's December, and that can only mean one thing! Yes; chess.com has brought out a new line of Holiday Bots for us to play against! Pull pin. Why are they "Holiday" bots and not "Christmas" bots?! Pull another pin. What happened to that really powerful Mrs Claus bot from last year?! Chuck both social hand grenades and run for cover! Seriously though, that's not the topic of my interest. Safe to say that, regardless of what their position is, I disagree with anyone that has their knickers in a twist about it! So, assuming we're all here for chess...

Yup, I actually bothered to play against the weakest bot. I thought for today's blog, I could maybe do a "speedrun"... which admittedly doesn't translate so well to the written form as it does for the visual medium. But this would not be a traditional speedrun. For a start, I could lose some games. Who's to say that I did? But also, I have a hypothesis, which I will share with you after I show you my game against Gingerbread Man, because I think it sort of displays my point.

OK, so, exactly how far could I take this? Santi doesn't have a rating, which means he's probably basically Stockfish, and I have no interest in wasting my time with that. Either he is unbeatable, or he will be mostly stockfish with some built-in weakness that you can take advantage of so that it is technically possible to get your crown. You know, like there was with Eugene a few months ago.

I feel that it is necessary to defend my honour here, and point out that yes, I DID beat Professor Passant (and if memory serves, on my first attempt); I just hadn't played that bot at the time I took this screenshot. But this is kind of my point. What if getting those hallowed triple crowns against as many bots as possible is all that matters to you, particularly if (like me), your strength is not such that it crushes every bot chess.com puts forward? You know... like most of us? My hypothesis is that it is easier to beat the strongest bots if you haven't just spent some time bashing the weaker ones. Here's my game with Santa.

Allow me to explain: As you saw in my game against Gingerbread Man, there is the issue of knowing you are up against an inferior opponent, so you're not on your A-game. Then you reach a bot who is actually a challenge, and it is difficult to turn that on. Case in point: I straight up hung a piece against Holly. Objectively, maybe I could have battled on and swindled a win - I'd certainly have tried in a tournament - but this was a "speedrun"; I had no interest. I resigned and set about trying to play a game that I'd be not-too embarrassed to put in my blog. To that point, I think by the time I'd hung a piece, I'd already beaten Holly a couple of times, just with games that I didn't have a record of, or didn't WANT to have a record of! This one just made the cut:

So, despite my presenting the games here in "Speedrun" order, my game with Penguin is actually the first one I played out of the 5 presented here. I had beaten Holly already, but on my phone after I just woke up. Besides which, if I couldn't beat Penguin, there would be no point in playing the others! Holly would be good for a warm-up game, but the others I shouldn't really be playing against, without a reason. So... here it is. The game v Penguin.

I suppose, to fully test my hypothesis, I should play the bots in "normal" speedrun order, and see how many attempts it takes me to beat Penguin again (or if I even can!) But, I don't think that would be definitive. So, in the meantime, I'm happy with my triple crown against Penguin, and I look forward to taking on the other Batman villains in due course. If they haven't already done that gimmick; it's hard to keep track.