My Victory Against The Top Engine !
Komodo Dragon
Hey chess fans ! Have you heard of Komodo chess engine? I’m sure you do, but if you haven’t, it is one of the best engines out there. Komodo Dragon has earned it’s reputation as one of the strongest chess engines in the world, with a maximum rating reaching an impressive 3200. Here, on Chess.com, everyone can actually play against it, but don’t worry, you can select an rating equivalent to yours. It has an Elo range of 250 - 3200. So a lot of options. Maybe you want a hard challenge, then 3200 is for you, or for equal game you can pick similar rating to yours. I suggest you to give it a try, this will definitely improve your game !
Going for the toughest Level !
I unquestionably like hard challenges. So There was only one option: Play against Komodo Level 25. This is the final boss with a staggering 3200 Elo ! It is so strong that it even crushes top Grandmasters. No human can beat this computer in a normal game, Drawing is a possibility. So I had to go with the same tactic I used against Mittens (You can check that blog out here if you already haven’t). Remember - Be a cunning fox. I selected custom game and went for 1 minute time control. Plan was simple: Avoid getting checkmated and huge blunders while also moving quicker than Komodo. This time I was well prepared. Mittens gave me fantastic experience, but this opponent was a lot tougher. So I took a sip of water and started the game. I went for standard E4 opening. Komodo responded with French Defense. I was trying to quickly develop as many pieces as possible and go for the exchanges to get most material off the board. It was working in the beginning, but i did too many inaccurate moves and a mistake. I got brutally beaten up in the middle game and were down by 2 pawns. Lost control in the center and King was exposed. Luckily there was no checkmate coming. The game was so fast, I didn’t even realize that we had already played 21 moves and Komodo Dragon resigned the game ! Chess bots are programmed to resign the game when they have a few seconds left on the clock, because this is what exactly happened. Komodo had 2.3 seconds against my 30 seconds. What a WIN !
Check out the whole game here:
Game review Showed that Komodo had 94.8% accuracy and I had 83%. As mentioned before, I did 6 inaccurate moves and 1 mistake. Komodo did only 1 inaccurate move. In the end evaluation bar told that i were 3.2 moves behind. For further analysis you can check it here.
Extra
After winning Komodo Dragon I decided to go for another fun challenge. Do the same thing with Hikaru Nakamura chess bot with an Elo of 2820. The 5 time US Champion is quite frequently number one rated on Blitz and Bullet on Chess.com. Time control would be the same - 1 minute. Plan was to play positionally and keep the king safe. Now with previous experience, this should be very doable. So I started the game. I went for an opening I usually don’t play. It was the Colle system which is not aggressive, but rather strategic system that emphasizes long term advantages. I didn’t make any attacking moves, just tried to advance the pawns slowly and trade many pieces off the board. This tactic was Brilliant !! It worked like a charm, because Nakamura resigned after 24 moves. He had 1.3 seconds left against my 27 seconds. Again, i managed to flag the opponent, but this is not the whole story !
By checking the game review I was shocked ! It is very rare that I play this well ! I had 91.7% accuracy against Hikaru’s 90.8%. I actually managed to be more accurate ! Although I did 1 mistake, I managed to do less inaccurate moves: 3 against Hikaru’s 6. Evaluation bar showed completely equal game and according to game review of that game, We both did play like 2800 rated players!
Check out the game here:
For further analysis click here.
Conclusion
Playing against chess bots is definitely good for learning and improving. Most importantly it is fun ! This teaches you to be strategic and you can use this knowledge later in real games for your advantage. Komodo Dragon is the best engine on the platform to play against. The variety of ratings should give you a fun challenge.
