NEW: Vs Computer Overtaken by Bots!

Hey, everyone! Today we're very thrilled to introduce you to 60+ new friends who are always up for a game - in a brand new Vs Computer feature!

The new Computer has a lot more personality, thanks to the addition of an international team of chess Bots for you to choose from, each with a style all their own! (You may have bumped into some of them already in Live Chess - or on the Android app. They'll be arriving on iOS very soon!)

There are characters for every level of play, each with their own combination of strengths and weaknesses, preferred openings and playing style. You might find that one of the adaptive bots is more fun to play: These opponents will play harder when they are behind - and ease up when they have the advantage!

You will also find a couple of bots based on real-life chess players... and we're looking forward to adding more of these personalities soon!

On the other hand, if you like your computer opponents to be more like computers, then you can avoid the crowd of Bots, and keep things clean: Play vs the engine with no special configuration, except for 25 levels of difficulty.

Once you've found the perfect opponent, you'll discover some new options to play with. These will determine the style of game you want to play - and how many crowns you can earn by winning the game. (You can earn up to three crowns vs each Bot!)

If you're in the mood for a challenge, then go for three crowns in Challenge Mode, and you will receive no help or second chances! In Friendly Mode, you have a quota of three takebacks and three hints per game, for two crowns. Or get maximum insight from coaching tools with Assisted Mode, where a win gets you one crown. 

When you want something a bit more specific, try Custom Mode to pick and choose your own set of options. (How many crowns the game can earn will depend on which assistive features you enable.) And guess what! You can even play timed games now too!

That's it! We're so eager to hear what you think! Please let us know in the Comments or use the "?" icon in the lower-left corner of the page to Report a Bug or Make a Suggestion. Thank you so much!

nice

That link takes you to...:

https://www.chess.com/play/computer

...where there is no option to choose the featured new bots.  To find the new, featured bots I had to go to /live and click on vs. computer.

works for me

This was working yesterday—and I loved it—but is gone today and now I'm sad.

Sorry, guys! We're having an issue, not with the new feature, but with the deployment system. We hope to have it resolved very quickly, and the new feature will be seen at /play/computer.

Will update shortly!...

Nooooo! The classic VS computer is gone!

:'(

Custom settings are gonna be useful for learning. Looks fun, going to try a bot match for once.

Ok, should be live for everyone now! Sorry for the false start.

This brings chess.com one step closer to becoming Twitter.

Where are the stats, archives, etc. for these completed games?  I just played a quick game against Emir (1000), and the win result shows +21:

...but the game is not displayed in archive, no change to any stats that I can see, etc.

Inquiring minds want to know.

If you scroll down to the end of the opponent-selection screen, you can choose Komodo for more of a classic feel. (Once you play it, Komodo will become your default opponent at the top.) And Custom Mode may help adjust & refine the experience even more, to minimize the differences. I hope that is helpful!

+21 is here an indication of the material difference. Computer games played in this context are unrated, although the Bots have (hard-coded) estimated ratings to suggest their playing strength. Vs Computer games are not saved automatically (although your unfinished games will persist if you get called away, close the tab, etc.), and at the moment, these games still can't be saved after the fact.

However, we have recently made changes to to our database to allow for the permanent storage of Vs Computer games, and the feature itself is a work in progress. Saving a finished Vs Computer game will be optional, and such games will subsequently appear in your Archive. (The Archive itself will be updated to allow you filter these games in/out of view, as desired.)

Note that using the Vs Computer feature differs significantly from playing a Bot opponent in Live Chess, which is no different from playing a rated member: games in Live are rated (or not) and automatically saved forever.

Copy that.

Suggestions re: bots...

1) Implement a more 'natural' playing pace for the different levels of play, stages of the game, etc.  Instead of the bots instantly making moves, have them take a few seconds here, a long think there, maybe blitz out the first few opening moves, then take a while for the first few moves after book, stronger players moving faster than weaker players, etc, This would give those of us who are just starting to play live games a better feel for how the pace of "real" games against human opponents will go.  

2) Give us the option to play the bots from book & custom positions.  There are positions that I'd love to get more practice playing, but don't see all that often in my correspondence games.  Being able to set up specific positions would effectively give me the ability to drill those positions against increasing (or varying) levels of bots.

For 2, this was posted when the feature first went live for beta:

Nice features.  Any ETA on iOS version?

Hi Deepgreene, how do the 25 computer levels correspond to the old 10 computer levels? For example, is level 25 better than the old level 10?

2) Give us the option to play the bots from book & custom positions.

you used to be able to do this from the 'Analysis/load FEN/finish v computer' and lower computer strength as needed, but now the 'finish v computer' is set to maximun (25) with no option to lower it.

The classic VS computer is gone!  The new board is smaller. I can't find Komodo. Please allow the option of playing the computer as we did in the past.