five eligible bot-chelors

in this series of games i consider the datability of each valentine perhaps a little too seriously. this may be a result of last months heartbreak, when i thought i found my soulmate in trashbot, only to be rejected.

little did i know that the february set of bots would give me another chance at love!

the valentines will challenge not only my chess skills, but also challenge me to keep an open mind. cuz i was surprised when i got to valentine #5:

why is there a goose here? is it possible to love a goose?

we will find out.

the setting

the first thing you will encounter on the valentine bot page is a special visual theme, complete with chocolate chess pieces.

the rose background color and graphic is lovely, with checkerboard textures used on the petals. but the real delight of this theme is the pieces.

look at them. look at their tasty tasty chocolateness. i want to eat these so bad. i wish i could buy a box in real life.

and look at those horsies! they love us!

i also appreciate having a pink board with a decent amount of contrast, but not too much. i favor a board where the dark squares arent so dark that the black pieces get lost on them. i like the usual pink board option (bubblegum), but it is overall too bright.

i want this theme as a permanent option, props to whoever created it. and it is the perfect setting for the dates im about to go on, providing a comfortable and romantic coziness.

i will be having my first date with each bot as black, to get an idea of their personalities when i let them make the first move. what does a bot-chelors opening say about their datability?

if the first date goes well, i may make a move of my own and invite them to a 2nd date where i play as white.

valentine #1: the mysterious bachelor #1

we had a lively conversation during our date, all included in the analysis notes.

im playing as black:

ive spliced together the bot game page and the game review page so that u can see the special valentines day theme as well as the game stats, while i show off how promising this game started with those tasty knight pins i love so much.

i was truly hoping to find love with bachelor #1. hes an incredible guy with many attractive qualities, and he played a better game than i was expecting. but from our conversation, you can understand why i decided to forego a 2nd date.

sometimes one blunder is enough to lose u the game, if u know what i mean.

valentine #2: ghosty the ghost bot

omg i was so excited to see a ghost in the lineup, this has great potential!

see my flair?? see how we already have so much in common?????

this could be a sign of fate. i might already be in love. what could possibly go wrong?

this game felt easier than the one with bachelor #1, at least intellectually. there were just so many queen moves that it felt straightforward to rebuff.

but emotionally, it was more difficult. i had such high hopes for this date and thought it was going really well, until that surprise ending.

nothing for it but to move on to bachelor #3.

bachelor #3: dj ron passant

i have never played chess with a real chess player before, only bots and elo 100s like me. so i was looking forward to playing with the realest player and seeing if theres any chemistry!

this game had a promising start, with those juicy knight pins i love so much. but in another twist ending, it turned out knight pins are not sufficient on which to base an entire relationship.

despite a strong opening by dj ron, this conversation didnt go the way i expected.

and so, while i wait to hear from mom passant, i might as well move on to valentine #4.

valentine #4: the ambitious trish

trish has a competitive spirit and a decent rating. lets see if she can bring it on the table.

i feel like i barely scratched the surface of trisha on our first date. she seemed a little bit on her guard with me, which makes sense as she is a famous reality star and im just some rando on the internet. but im sure that beneath that polished media-friendly exterior there is a deep well of personality, and im willing to take it slow to break thru her guard and get to know who trish really is on the inside.

so she is the first of the valentines that i asked on a 2nd date.

this time i made the first move, playing as white.

i made a couple blunders in a row at the end due to a miscalculated plan. i just kinda forgot about the checkmate threats on my own side of the board, and thought i had enough pressure to keep the initiative.

this became a recurring theme throughout the dates that followed, but i slowly learned to see incoming check threats better, and also got stronger at trish's favourite openings.

still, trish's skill and wisdom continued to challenge me.

so i started trying to get trickier. in this game i did what i thought was a billion iq rook sacrifice that would land me up material…

and if she had taken the rook, it might have worked out the way i had envisioned, with me up on material… but it also would have given her a mate in 1 on the very next move after.

…and in our game she didnt even take.

lesson learned: if u gon fianchetto catalan-style, actually fianchetto. then do the moves in front of you, cuz im not chess enough to do billion iq plans.

i learned more lessons, like when to not immediately automatically jump into knight pins. just cuz i love pinning knights doesnt mean its always a good idea.

maybe, now that knight pins are at stake, i will finally get better at looking for how i can get checked.

our dates continued, game after game. but would we ever take that next step and become closer?

that is when something magical happened on our next date.

if u follow my blogs, u know that i have been looking forward to doing an en passant someday. in one of my first games of this year, i even forgot how en passant worked and tried to take a pawn en passant with my queen. i was almost so excited, and then my dreams were dashed.

i have played like at least 200 games now, yet no en passant. i have had the physical opportunity once or twice, but i didnt want to take en passant when it wasnt right. i have integrity.

u could say i was still an en passant virgin… until this very special moment on a date with trish:

some people might not think taking en passant is that special, but trish understands that this is no mundane moment. i appreciate that she made it extra special for me by celebrating this dramatic move and validating my dramatic feelings about it.

trish really gets me.

we continued to go out on dates together, enjoying our familiar banter, just being comfortable with each other. until one game i suddenly found myself in a position to take advantage of trish blundering! how will she respond? will this competitive and challenging woman celebrate my wins and stand by me until the end? or will she become petty and jealous, just like the character she plays on tv?

fortunately for our relationship, she not only gracefully accepted my moves, she even wanted to celebrate the moment where the game turned in my favor, by taking a selfie together!

wow, what a woman.

and we r so cute together, here is the selfie we took:

after this game i felt like our relationship was on solid ground.

i would never ruin things by letting my eyes roam elsewhere. but trish also loves to gossip about her fellow contestants. gossip is part of her professional skillset, and i want to support her and provide the kind of conversational stimulation she needs. so when she kept asking me my thoughts on the goose every time we went out, i took the hint and decided to meet the goose so that next time id be able to have something to contribute to the gossip.

bachelor #5: honk honk is goose

i will admit, i did not expect much from going on a date with a goose, which is why i wasnt in a rush to step away from trish.

perhaps im shallow. without trish's encouragement i woulda missed out, cuz goose has an unexpected depth of character.

well, in this game i learned my lesson. thanks for encouraging me to expand my horizons, trish!

"love" is not quite the right word, for what began to develop between myself and honk goose. but its not entirely wrong, either.

honk goose and i played over a dozen games while deepening our mutual intellectual admiration, and the closest i came to victory was when i was up a pawn into the endgame before blundering into a fork:

this first blunder wasnt until move 33, which im quite proud of. but i shoulda known that honk goose would not let me have any pawns for free. its so obvious in hindsight, but it still takes me so long to see and understand the state of the board on every move, and by 33 im tired and less careful.

i think it might be possible for me to find a win or at least a draw if i spend hours a day every day playing honk goose for the rest of the month. it would be a shame not to see all the possible dialogue lines, even if some of the lines dont make much sense, in the same kind of way an actual ai bots lines sometimes dont sense. but honk goose r a goose, so i can forgive the occasional intellectual misstep.

(this is just the game without my own annotations, for posterity)

the final judging

now that i have spent time with all 5 valentines, i feel ready to make my final choice as to which one wins my heart.

bachelor #1 is disqualified for being my dad. and after playing another friendly game with him, um…

that better be my mom ur talking about, martin.

oh, well thats okay then.

he is still disqualified from this competition tho.

dj ron is also disqualified, for being my son. but that just means i have more family to love! and he loves living with me!

ghosty and honk goose are both disqualified for not being interested in pursuing romance with me. probly just as well, as neither of them are living humans. 

but even if ghosty and i arent destined for love, that doesnt mean we have to be lonely. ghosty can haunt my kitchen and mix us all up some drinks and snacks after our pickleball practice. 

we will make sure to accommodate ghostys food allergies.

honk goose, on the other hand, can hang out in the library to be my best drinking buddy. we r both highly literate intellectuals who appreciate good puns and existential dread in equal measure.

so yes, it is true that trish wins by default, as she is the only legal contestant. but my winsome trisha is no mere consolation prize. she is superior to me in chess, yet she never gets bored of playing with me no matter how bad i am. this shows her graciousness and dedication, both important qualities in a future partner. 

she captures pieces, reality show championships, and my heart.

if things had started more normally between us, without this whole valentines contest rigamarole, i might worry about getting lonely when shes away on tv shoots sometimes for weeks at a time. but thanks to the friends and family we have made along the way i now have a house full of loved ones to keep me company while i support her career from afar. and when she is home, our son will dj amazing dance parties that we and our 12 siblings-in-laws can all enjoy. 

everyone will be happy together in our dream house and its gonna be killer.

epilogue

not long after we became engaged, dj ron got a breakthrough gig thanks to one of trish’s hollywood connections, and entered the big times. he was finally able to pay what he owed the IRS.

ron used some of his extra fortune to buy us all a bigger house, so that he could have more basement to live in. the house has a spacious library for goose, featuring not only a healthy amount of books on chess openings but also the collected philosophical works of rene duckcartes and the back catalogue of towels monthly. the house and furniture is constructed entirely using classical joinery techniques, so that no metal need be used in construction, as martin is allergic. theres a modern kitchen with full built-in bar for ghosty to practice mixology (using all plastic utensils and nonmetal dishware), and plenty of guest rooms for when dad and our step siblings visit for dance parties or to play with our foster kitten.

we r now planning a quiet backyard wedding, out by the pasture where ghostys spectral steed stands watch against the interminable darkness, just past the pickleball courts and a healthy distance from honk goose’s private pooping playground.

at first i thought trish might want a huge fancy wedding given her star power, but she prefers to keep the drama at work and keep things quiet and intimate at home. honk goose will officiate, and martin-dad will walk her down the aisle. he is planning to get us monogrammed towels as a wedding present. (dont tell trish, its a surprise! i only know cuz he needed to ask me whether she planned to go by mrs patrisha every, or if shes keeping her maiden name of <null>)

hoping to get wedding planning inspiration, me and ghosty did end up going to that ghost wedding together as friends. in an ironic twist, neither the bride nor groom showed up. 

legend has it they still have not texted each other to this day.

some might take that as a sign of bad luck, but i take it as a more practical reminder:

we must love while we yet live.