Okay, I have now greeted you with the word okay, happy? No, okay then, let's start with a warm welcome of SUCK IT UP!!! Today's blog marks the 4th of the what NOT to play series and I am super hyped to be making the blog, I want this blog to reach 100 views as I only have 17 blogs hit the mark. If you click on this blog and decide to actually read it, I have massive respect for you. And remember, as mentioned in the Botez Gambit blog,you can get your name mentioned in the next 5 blogs, if you are able to play the botez gambit, Bongcloud variation. Remember the rules, you can't get your friends to help you do this, it must be against a complete stranger. And no texting them about your plan. You also must send me the link to the game for proof as I will not just use some kind of powerful AI to track my viewers games to see how they are playing. If you want to know how to play the opening press on the link above to go there. And if you thought pressing on the link is a waste of time but want to know why I am even starting this ridiculous series. Well, I will show you in the next part that can only be labeled as the part that's called.........
ORIGINS
So, a pretty long time ago, which isn't even that long ago if I am being honest. Maybe about 2 weeks ago, chess player and blogger @VOB96 made a forum post titled VOB's Blogger's Ranking (and which football player are you?), if you want to see this forum, join the club and check out the link here. Now, of course the curious old me had to see what ranking I was in the forum, so I said that I was in. And what I saw shocked me, I was 28th out of 29, well... Now there are actually 31 people and of course I am still second last. The description on why said that I should focus more on the main subject, which is chess if you don't know what this website is (or app) is really for. I also think my writing needs to be longer so I created THIS very blog series to get myself up on that leaderboard and make it to actually decent ranks. To show you, here is a picture of the ranking.
But, with this blog to be perfection, it needs to be super long, interesting and funny. So that is the aim of this very blog that you are reading right now. But now we have to actually start this blog, and how we start this blog is how you would normally start it, with the...
ORIGIN OF THE OPENING
well, google AI gave me a... lets say... strange answer. Here are all the useless facts it gave me. So the opening is also called the Gedult's opening. Seriously, why do we need so many extra names. This isn't the Svalbard Global seed vault! Wait... But how do we really know that? Also are we all just living fake lives inside a huge seed called Humans? It also said that it is an irregular opening. Again, weird. This is chess, not my maths fractions homework. Another thing this spewed from the AI is that the guy who made it lived from 1825 to 1874, like, I guess that might be important if you want to learn about the guy himself, but by itself it isn't really that important of a fact. And the last thing it told me is that its code name is A00. That name is closer to one of Elon Musk's kids names than a code name. Like... aren't code names stuff like, blackbird, white flame etc? Very, very weird.
Now, here is some important stuff, not like the code name that looks more like a wi-fi password. The opening is considered an irregular opening since it lacks a huge amount of development. I know the fact that it is an irregular opening is uninteresting, but the reason why to me is personally quite fascinating. The person it is named after is also important even though the time of birth and death are not. The maker of the opening is Thomas Wilson Barnes. Wait a minute, is it pronounced Barn's or Barn ease? No matter the pronunciation, I am not changing the thumbnail. And the opening is also apparently used as a setup for the bongcloud opening. Which I do actually have a blog about. You should check that out on my blog channel after you finish reading this blog. But in general, there is really nothing special about this opening besides how it is played, which is what the next part is about.
HOW TO PLAY THE OPENING
The opening is a very simple one to play, in only one move can you play this opening, of course you do need to be white though since the requirement is that it is a white exclusive opening and the person playing black is unable to play it. Or I could be entirely wrong and black can make its own Barnes opening. But what is the opening itself, how do we truly understand the nature this opening. Well, you don't have to, because it is just in this singular board...
So now you know what the opening is and how to play it, see, it is just another variation of the bongcloud, so does this mean that my whole collection of blogs about that not to play just been an extension of the bongcloud? Now you may be thinking, "He has nothing more to teach us, there is literally nothing more to teach us" and to that I answer, yes, yes there is. If you read my previous what NOT to play blogs, you would know what comes next... the...
EXPERIMENATION
So how this works it that we play bots and see if we can beat them with these terrible openings to see if they are even that terrible. Last, time, we played with the grab and won all the games, so let's see if the barnes opening can do better. Starting off with...
I beat Martin 3 times and all three times I saved them, but when I checked only 1 remained, I even beat Martin in a record time for me with 24 moves. Obviously only one less than the previous record, but still a new personal record. I will never figure out how these bots play. Martin is so confusing. Why can't he just accept defeat? Bro just trades when it's annoying and does exactly the opposite of what you want. I thought he is supposed to be the easy and not stubborn bots. I enjoyed playing the other bots of higher elo. They were way less annoying. But overall Martin is still an easy bot and I want chess.com to not cherish him but CHANGE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS STUPIDLY ANNOYING BOT!!! But now that that game is over, we can focus on the 400 elo player, a man more annoying then even Martin! Enter Juan...
I played this game with a massive move difference then when I played Martin. Weird right? Every other time I experimented the bots got easier to beat as I went on. But this stupid bot is just SO annoying. I really wanted to throw the computer out of the window. Him constantly taunting me with the. Hola, I am so good at chess. No he isn't, he stalled the entire game and then just said that he was amazing or something. I've got a joke actually with the name. Did you hear about the two Mexicans who had a duel? It was a Juan on Juan. The joke isn't even that funny but I just wanted to brighten up th mood so I don't have to think about that stupid bot. But overall it is just an easy to beat bot and I still got passed him. Now to play the 550 elo bot.
Bro took the L even though bro's name is literally pronounced NO-L. 41 moves isn't as good as the Martin game but is better than the Juan game. This is one of my favourite bots as he offers a nice and relaxing game instead of constant anxiety of a secret tactic. Plus his dialogue is also very calming and chess.com should make more bots just like him. Not related to this blog or anything but I personally think that the engine bot should be given some dialogue. But now there is an important announcement. Because of the new dinosaur bots. I am going to play them instead of the other bots. Just because I feel like it. So let us start with the ferocious T-rex.
So I did save this game to my archive but just in case the computer glitched again like it did with Martin I saved it onto the library just so that sweet 22 move record could be spared for me. Playing this bot was such fun and his dialogue did get a little crazy. example "Is the game heating up or is it just an asteroid?"💀. I got really close to checkmate at the very start of the game which make me happy enough and of course 22 is my new personal record. Now let's see how far I can push my luck since the next dinosaur is on 925 elo! A real challenge for me...
The promotion checkmate in this game really hyped me up. And especially the 31 move win against a bot with higher elo than me. The starting dialogue is again... Pretty wild💀. Example, "I dodged an asteroid to ruin y'alls day, are you ready to play?"💀. I think I am placing down way too many skull emojis but I do not even care because this bot was cornered by my bishop. Then trap moved quick and elegantly, slow and steady but not too slow and steady that it would take me another 200 moves to beat him. Overall the game was a blast but now we are moving onto the smart levels. The 1400 rated bots. These are pretty high so I might not win this opening, Wish me luck...
So I only get three goes against a bot before I can say that I cannot beat this bot. This win was on the third and final attempt. It could've have ended right there. On the spot. And I am still unsure just how I was able to beat this bot. In the last game. It's like the dinosaur got easier. So it's either they are getting easier or I am just getting better. Either way, it is just a win for me, even if it is in 56 moves. That isn't even the worst game of the series so far. His knight basically did nothing the whole time. I'm really glad that I traded rooks now. Nothing too crazy about his dialogue. But the next bot will bring whole new challenges as the bot stands at a crazily massive 1875 elo. That's more than double my rating. I barely made it past the 1400. So how will I hold up against the Velociraptors?
Well, that bad news is. I lost, pretty harshly too. But the good news is that I don't need to write much more and you don't need to read too much either. I also learned from my mistakes and blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I just explained the meaning to life. Hopefully you were listening and didn't read a bunch of blah's. That would be a huge bummer. And by huge I mean massive. But what now? Are there any more dumb openings to explore. Well, lets save that for the...
CONCLUSION
I will not do anymore what NOT to play blogs, but will instead carry on the legacy with the what NOT to series. Next on the series I will be covering what NOT to do. And the topic will be stalemate. I hope you wait for the blog and read it. And I really hope that you enjoyed this blog because I want you to tell your friends on chess.com to read my blogs because I am greedy and want views. But anyway. I hope you stick around. Now...
