the 1200 bots: maria-bot, elena-bot, and wilson-bot

the 1200 bots: maria-bot, elena-bot, and wilson-bot

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at this level the bots are starting to be a real challenge for me! 

maria-bot:

i felt so thoughtful and good in this game. i recognised the petrov defense, and tho i didnt know book from there, i tried to imagine what i thought the book would do. i felt pretty smart pinning the knight on move 5, which was the last book move.

and then maria-bot blundered, when i would expect it to block the pin. there was a free pinned knight there for the taking and i went d4 instead.

arrows show how a pawn couldve taken a pinned knight

at least maria-bot went straight from book into a position the archive has never seen before! shes an innovator!

maria-bot was determined to blunder both her knights and i was determined to allow it.

arrows show anothe knight ready to be eaten by my pawn, if only id noticed it.

looking back in the review, i wasnt as principled and sharp as i felt like i was being.

i wish the bot games tracked how much time u spend. i spent over 10 minutes on some of the moves in the middlegame, but once i thought i had it figured out i tended to do each move in the sequence pretty quickly until all my ideas were complete, instead of stopping to really consider if id missed anything.

arrow shows a hanging rook i missed a chance at taking.

so next time, even if my plan is going according to plan, i will take my time if i have time. and i will recognise that rather than starting and completing plans one by one, i should be developing plans within plans to continue my plans as i plan.

elena-bot:

my first game against elena-bot i resigned after blundering my queen early. the bots really are getting better!

on the rematch i went for a strategy where i went for trades that looked even by points but were a positive for me due to my big space-taking light pawn position.

i avoided blunders and did pretty good for me, but once again i was too focused on my own plans to see unexpected opportunities. i felt like my big position was slightly delicate and really wanted to finish developing, castle, and make it solid. so i missed elena-bot’s weakness on g7. twice.

arrow shows a hanging rook i missed a chance at taking.

at least i didnt miss any really obvious knights. i gotta remember to look out for g7 and b7 in general. this is how i end up with the enemy queen in my back rank every other game.

wilson-bot:

wilson-bot beat me fair and square the first time. he started with a duras gambit, which i will have to add to my responses to e4 cheat sheet:

diagram of names of common responses to e4

my instinct was to decline with bishop d3 but i decided to accept to see where it would go. i had some ideas and didnt think i would end up in a bad position, and it turned out fine.

i blundered my bishop going into the end game, but managed to fight to recover…

game screenshot showing a hanging bishop about to die.

and then i blundered my other bishop.

i tried to still fight for a win but i lost stamina, made some missteps, and it was just a sad long dragged-out endgame.

my rematch with wilson-bot was a close one, full of mistakes.

it opened with bird, and i responded with c5, which is what the pet openings course taught. i was proud of remembering that. then it turned into a sicilian defense: mcdonnell attack, according to the analysis. and things evolved from there.

the move i absolutely shouldve seen was that this threat from the knight was not so big a threat.

a knight is one move away from taking a bishop to fork the king and other bishop, if i dont do something.

i saw the potential king/bishop fork if the knight goes e3, and i couldnt see a good way out of it. my pieces were so cramped. i tried looking for counter threats and other distractions. i considered sacrifices. i thought about moving the first bishop, which would save the bishop, but whats the point if i get forked anyway?

i pre-emptively castled to become unforkable, leaving the bishop to die, and went on a retaliatory pawn rampage, sacrificing a pawn and a knight for no reason. 

wilson-bot was up 6 points for a lot of the middlegame, but i tried to rally and stay sharp. and after all the trades and chaos were through, suddenly i had a nice open field facing a nice exposed king to check, and i was able to gain back all my points and more.

when i was trying to simplify down into the endgame, i miscounted the trade and lost my lead. pure laziness cuz i felt so comfortable in my lead. so it was a hard fought endgame, especially after i accidentally hung my second rook. i refused any trade that would end in a draw, and made use of my king+pawn endgame practice to bring home the win.

wilson-bot and i are now 1-1, and i could go for best of 3. but im more interested in moving on to bots who are not so forgiving of blunders, because i really shouldnt be making so many blunders in games where i have infinite time.

i have a feeling the 1300 bots are going to require a better effort!

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