The Mighty Mittens Has Fallen (Kinda)

All the rage in the chess world has been the cat bots on Chesscom since they were added at the beginning of January, particularly one of the cats:

Mittens.

Mittens is such a mystery because no one knows her true chess talent. Chesscom simply gave her the mysterious rating of 1. That's right: 1 ELO. 

When I first saw that, I was like: pfft. 1 ELO. So this bot is gonna be a way, way worse version of Martin. I didn't even read the description that Chesscom gave of Mittens. I just found out the hard way by getting absolutely demolished in my first game against her. 

It didn't take long for everyone else in the chess community to start sharing my confusion and misery by getting utterly destroyed against Mittens. Hikaru Nakamura, Levy Rozman (GothamChess), Eric Rosen, and a lot of other chess masters and streamers were blowing up about it. Levy's video on it especially stood out to me because of his reaction at the end when Mittens stunned him with an insane tactic. It was especially when I saw that Hikaru lost multiple times to this bot that I realized just how ridiculously good this bot was. I was determined to beat her. 

So, as any normal person would do, I decided to spend every waking moment that I wasn't at school trying and trying to defeat the almighty Mittens bot. It was exhausting. 

Finally, just today, I had a breakthrough.

A draw. A huge moment for me, kind of like when a 13-year-old IM Magnus Carlsen drew with Garry Kasparov in 2004. That was when Magnus really started to show out as a sensational chess player. Maybe I'm on path to become like Magnus? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. But drawing with Mittens is a big deal for me.

Maybe it isn't for you. Maybe you're sitting there scoffing like, "I've drawn with Mittens a hundred times." In that case, that's impressive. I'm telling you: I really have given my 100% into all of these games against her. It's nice to see some of the grueling pay off. That's why I'm making a blog post about it.

(Note: I don't have the PGN to the first game because I didn't save the analysis, so that's my bad. Just trust me: we drew.)

Then, I did it again.

Just to prove that the first draw wasn't a fluke, I played with Mittens again and drew again in a 73-move, near-perfect masterpiece. And I promise you, this is no fake game. And no, I did not use an engine. This is a legit game. You can find it in my completed games on my profile. The game lasted about 2 hours because I spent a long time thinking about every move. Here is the full match:

I played that game at 96.7% accuracy. Mittens played at 97.8%. Sounds like a grandmaster-level classical game, which I just recently wrote a blog on. Go check it out. 

Anyhoo, obviously, a draw is not a win, but I will take anything besides a loss against Mittens, especially since I have spent weeks without end trying to defeat her. 

And I will keep trying. Believe me, I won't stop until I've won. I must show the world my talent, and also, prove to myself that I have talent. 

Maybe I'll make a blog about it when I win. Notice how I said "when" and not "if". Oh yeah, I'm super confident that I will achieve my goal. I'm almost there. I've drawn with her twice, and now I will win.

Have you either drawn with or beaten the almighty Mittens? Comment the game below with the PGN! 

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Cya next time!