Chessnut Air | WIN Against the Levy-Mario-bot on chess com!
#chessnutair #gothamchess #supermario #bot #carokann #vonhenniggambit #brilliant
Bots are generally not that enjoyable to play against, but I do like the time-limited thematic bots that chess.com releases. At the time of this video and article, chess.com has several Super Mario Brothers themed bots, hilariously crossed with chess.com personalities.
Seeing that Mario has been crossed with Levy Rozman of GothamChess, one of my favourite chess YouTubers, I knew that I had to make a video playing this bot!
I had the White pieces and just like his real-life counterpart, Levy-Mario, Lario, responds with the Caro-Kann Defense. But how will Lario respond to me von Hennig Gambit? (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Bc4)
The answer - pretty well actually! Levy's Caro-Kann expertise must had been built into this bot and they played the opening well all the way to move 6. However, this 1300 ELO rated bot was somewhat confounded by the complicated position afterwards.
By the middle game, we'd both castled kingside, but where I was marshalling my pieces for an attack, Lario's pieces were somewhat cramped and stuck on the queenside. On move 13, I decided to play a dubious but aggressive move (13. Bg5). The goal was to potentially damage Lario's defensive pawns... and it worked! Lario attempted to kick my bishop with (13... h6), but that's what I wanted! Bishop sacrifice (Bxh6) - and this was rated a brilliant move by chess.com's analytic engine!
After Lario captures the bishop (gxh6), the g-file is open, and their king is terribly exposed. Lario soon loses the new h-pawn to my queen, and Black is forced to fill the gaping hole in their kingside defence with their bishop. I have a connect four of pawns, dividing the board in two and unfortunately for Lario, practically all their pieces are still stuck on the wrong side of the barricade. Move 21, my knight advances, setting up a mating attack with my queen. Lario chooses not to run and so it's game over on move 22!
