At What Point Do The Chess.com Bots Stop Making Egregious Blunders?

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callmeqt

Hello everyone. I'm qt, currently an 800 rated player on Chess.com.

(This will explain who I am. Reading this is not a necessity.) Now, my rating is rather misleading; I've been studying chess rather intensely now for about 3 months. I own multiple large books, know plenty of theory in numerous openings, have done more than a thousand puzzles, and have mastered all basic tactics and endgame strategies. The reason I remain an 800 is because I rarely get the chance to play due to my extremely sub-par WiFi. If I had to guess (and this is just a guess based on YouTube content), I'm probably somewhere from 1000-1300 in reality. 

Alright, now that you know who I am, here's my inquiry:

When will these Chess.com bots stop blundering? Currently, I've beaten every single bot up to the first advanced bot, "Pablo" (a 1600 rated bot), and I've noticed that my play needs not to be extravagant. If I play somewhat solidly and make threats, the bots will blunder sooner or later. Why is this? 

I understand the fact that if you beat a chess computer... it's going easy on you. Whatever they're using behind these bots (presumably Stockfish) is one billion times better than me at chess, but it has to allow me chances to win - I understand that. The thing that confuses me is how even a 1600 rated bot (and 1600 is no rating to be scoffed at) can still lose to someone only a couple months into their chess career who's rated 800. This is why I want to know when the bots stop blundering. I was told it's around 1500, but that's been proven false through my own experiences. 

Don't get me wrong - beating Pablo is a struggle, but it's not because he's good, it's because I'm bad. My biggest flaw is ignorance when it comes to the law of continuation in chess (if I move this piece, it no longer controls these squares, defends that piece, it can't go here anymore, it was blocking an enemy piece's view of another piece, etc.) and that's always how I lose to these bots. It's never ever the thrilling, neck-and-neck war from start to finish that I yearn for and adore in chess, but rather it's a matter of who blunders worse. 

Bots I struggled to beat in the past (namely Nelson and David) are now a struggle to lose to. They're too easy to beat because they lose pieces. I as an 800 shouldn't be able to say "wow, that move the 1600 just played against me was terrible and I can tell 5 reasons why" and yet more than once that type of thing occurred. 


I just played this game against David a minute ago (I'm not saying it was a great game or that I'm necessarily proud of it, but I just need an example. Also, I'm aware that David is an anomaly among the bots. He plays crappy, absurd openings, but then plays really sharp middle games most of the time, and holds up in the end game):

I've you've bothered to read this far, thanks so much. Please leave me any information you can possibly offer, even if it seems insignificant. This has annoyed me for a while and a conclusive answer would be great. 

callmeqt

Two things I forgot to mention:

1 - My opening here was careless, I know.

2 - I would for the reader to focus on bogus moves like 19. Ng7+?

It's an entirely pointless move that simply gets his knight trapped. Why in the world would any 1400 play that? They never would. There's no 1400 rated human in the world that would subject themselves to that, and if they are then I, an 800, am better than that 1400. That move is nothing but a pointless, senseless blunder, and it's infuriating to win from things like that.

baddogno

For whatever it's worth, I've beaten all the bots up to 1700 and here I'm stuck.  Oh I beat Isla when she made a really unsound attack that lost her material and I was able to trade down into an end game I won, but no one else.  I've gotten 3 or 4 draws, but that's it.  They'll either play this incredibly boring positional game and trade down to an end game that I barely lose or some silly opening that I should be able to take advantage of, but just can't.  So no conclusive answer from me, sorry, but I do think you're getting close to the level that you are asking about.

KevinOSh

A major difference between playing the bots and playing the humans is your rating doesn't drop when you resign against a bot. 👑 are also awarded for winning once. So people tend to beat a bot once a move onto the next one and not remember that they resigned once or more before they beat that bot. Unless a player (any player) can consistently beat a particular bot, theu haven't yet reached the level where you are superior to it. Bots blunder, but then so do humans. Even GMs sometimes blunder. It's a part of the game.

JamesColeman

I don’t think they ever stop blundering they just drastically reduce the frequency of it. Even the 2650 Naroditsky bot blundered a piece for nothing against me on move 9 the first time i played it. I’d say most of the bots under 2000 do something pretty terrible most games.