Bots are not reliably rated
Bot ratings
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Dec 8, 2020
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#3
Beginners under 1200 usually play very wild incorrect chess, which is annoying. Bots under 2000 play much saner chess, although their "mistakes" and "inaccuracies" are not human like at all. Bots over 2000 play a lot more like advanced players, even when they are still not human like in many of their decisions. Still, I think bots are about 350-400 points overrated under 2000 and say about 200-300 points overrated from about 2000 to 2300.
It sees logical to me that bots ought to be rated the same way everyone else is, ie if they lose, the rating goes down. Then we would get truer ratings.
I think part of it is you end up learning how the bot tends to play, and the bots tend to play pretty reliably. Think of it like playing a lot of games against one other person, over time you learn how that person plays and what their weaknesses are, but in this case, they're not doing the same, your opponent isn't learning to play against your weaknesses. So, while you may, in fact, be a weaker player overall, you've learned how to exploit their weaknesses in a way that lets you beat them reliably.
When you're playing against real people, especially online, you're playing against a variety of people so they never really become familiar enough for you to learn their specific playing style, and even if you did, they'd be learning yours at the same time.
As an example, when playing against the 1200 rated bots, I've realized that I can typically leave a piece hanging in the first 2-4 moves and not worry about protecting that piece because the bot is going to be focusing on development and won't want to reach into my side of the board until they're developed a bit further. When playing against real people in the 700-800 range, they tend to go for a hanging piece almost immediately, even if it ultimately gives them a weaker position for the mid-game.
Nkondrick wrote:
I think part of it is you end up learning how the bot tends to play, and the bots tend to play pretty reliably. Think of it like playing a lot of games against one other person, over time you learn how that person plays and what their weaknesses are, but in this case, they're not doing the same, your opponent isn't learning to play against your weaknesses. So, while you may, in fact, be a weaker player overall, you've learned how to exploit their weaknesses in a way that lets you beat them reliably.
When you're playing against real people, especially online, you're playing against a variety of people so they never really become familiar enough for you to learn their specific playing style, and even if you did, they'd be learning yours at the same time.
As an example, when playing against the 1200 rated bots, I've realized that I can typically leave a piece hanging in the first 2-4 moves and not worry about protecting that piece because the bot is going to be focusing on development and won't want to reach into my side of the board until they're developed a bit further. When playing against real people in the 700-800 range, they tend to go for a hanging piece almost immediately, even if it ultimately gives them a weaker position for the mid-game.
This is one of the cases of bots being morons, a major drawback to them vs actual people.
That's too bad, they seem like a good teaching tool otherwise.
I prefer to play against people.
Why is it that I can easily defeat the supposedly rated 1500 bots, but in real life I play around 800?