How Martin Plays Checkmates

Endgames: the relatively new feature that Chess.com has released that lets you test out your endgame knowledge, complete with a timer and a leaderboard that displays hourly, daily, and all time rankings.

How does Martin, the lowest rated bot on the chess.com Computers page with 250 points, play these endgames?

SPOILER: He doesn’t.

The first puzzle features a simple mate in two with two rooks and a king against a lone king. However, Martin deems a checkmate impossible with a ten point advantage and settles for a draw by repetition!
There are two things to consider here.

1. There was a mate in two on the board. This would be simple to win, and even 200 rated players do memorize this sort of mating pattern, the simplest mating pattern in chess (minus the 47-queen checkmating pattern)

2. Any player who finds themselves up a ten to nothing point advantage should definitely win the game. Even a player with three of the same color bishops should win with their extra pawn!

Martin could’ve won his very first game against the Komodo dragon, but decided that a draw was good enough. Frankly, I would agree, but not in this sort of checkmating position!

After this abysmal performance I decided to give Martin three queens against Stockfish’s zero. Surprisingly, the game went like so:

Somehow Martin managed to win, so I then gave Stockfish three extra pawns. But on the first turn, Martin played such a stunning move:

But the game played out, and Martin came out victorious using a very powerful zugzwang.

For Martin’s final challenge, I gave him one queen against the opposing king. Who knows how the game will play out? Well…

Looks like Martin still has a lot to learn about chess from his children.