the 1500 bots: conversations with wendy, antonio, and pierre

i earned my 400 elo the hard way. so when a bot says its "advanced", would someone as hardworking as me be intimidated?

nooo of course not. i simply havent gotten around to them cuz i been too busy losing to trashbot1999 over and over.

but when i realized trashbot was labeled at 1700 and the first advanced bots are only 1500, i felt hope.

little did i know that that little flame of hope would soon turn into something greater...

first up: wendy-bot!

wendy likes fire—perhaps a little too much—and is french canadian. shes one of two francophone bots in the 1500s set.

ive included most of her bot dialogue, what i was thinking as i played, some other commentary informed by game review, and my own !! and ?? markings which are always correct and accurate.

our game was not very inspiring in terms of actual chess play, but it lit a fire in my chest and gave me some confidence that i wasnt trying to reach above my level.

as a bonus, it reminded me to check my smoke alarms.

second challenger: antonio-bot!

antonio is from paraguay. his bot speaks neither spanish nor guarani, but he does play the spanish opening.

i have no beef with antonio---hes a straightforward dude who threatened me with neither fire nor tricks.

perhaps his forthright personality is why i got suckered into playing against him way past my bedtime. i was pretty slow and tired, and the game reflects that. but the more behind i got in the opening, the more determined i was to find a mate, and antonio made it worth my while. what a sweetheart.

game review recognises my brilliant checkmate, but is nevertheless deeply unimpressed with my overall performance:

550 is still higher than my actual rating, and a win is a win, so ill take it.

the final boss of the 1500s: pierre-bot

pierre wants you to know two things about him: he is french and he is tricky. in fact, pierre likes being tricky almost as much as wendy likes fire.

pierre is the first in the 1500 group i struggled against. i lost several games before finding that w. i was extra blundery this morning, and i blame my late night with antonio for that.

in my first game, i was trying to find a way to trap the king around this snarl of pieces, and i got caught up in trying to keep the position intact. 

i was winning here but felt like if i broke open the clump the enemy queen would be let out and i would lose my positional advantage. i tried to get trickier than i am capable of being, instead of just taking the lead on points and going steady.

i went for immediate rematches, and the more i played the more susceptible i became to blunder after blunder, as seen in the collection of ??s that i have lovingly cultivated:

later, after food and caffeine and getting my day started, i decided to come back and get serious. i wanted to beat all these bots and post my 1500 bot blog today, and i knew that playing one longer focused game would take less time than losing over and over with unfocused mistakes.

my final game with pierre-bot had a rough start. i really thought i had a nice fork here with my knight:

i have bishop blindness. i need to work on that.

but this mistake did what early blunders do for me on a good day, which is make me focus up and become all the more determined to let nothing more slip by.

if pierre-bot punished my blunders, i would punish his blunders twice as hard.

it was a long slow game from there, but i finally impressed the game review. i think it helped that i focused less on long-term plans and positioning that might or might not pan out, and more on the moves right in front of me.

thx for the vote of confidence, game review! i know its just that it was a longer game with lots of easy checks that pump up the accuracy score, and that i eased up on making speculative moves that i was hopeful would be the start of long-term billion iq plans, but after my losses this morning i will happily take this win!

gg pierre. 

this is the hardest ive struggled against a bot and won, and i could see myself going back to pierre if i find myself stuck on higher level bots again. pierre is beautiful and precious and just wants to trick me with his tricky tricks.

1500 level bots accomplished! its back to my current nemesis trashbot1999 for now, but pablo's days are numbered.

special thx to @KevinSmithIdiot for helping me figure out how to edit the in-game annotations. i may have found my calling.