Finally beat Mateo Bot

Wow. He has been the most frustrating bot for me. I've been watching John Bartholomew's chess fundamentals and I would say it's really helped. I've been holding off playing rated games until I feel the basic fundamentals have solidified in my mind. I notice when I'm not playing well my decision making becomes more reckless. I probably played this bot 30 times before I finally beat him. It felt good to finally whittle his pieces down and checkmate him with the double queens. I have gotten some great suggestions for books to look for as far as fundamentals and chess principles but I'd like to get a long list of them. If anyone can recommend what they believe to be the best in literature on the game, I am planning on buying as many books as I can get my hands on. I love this game and I want to be as great at it as I possibly can. 

It's fun to notice one's own progress. At first, I was basically always losing outright in the opening. He loves that Sicilian defense and it was definitely giving me problems. As the games went on I was drawing as much as I was losing. I'd get into a winning position and in my excitement, I'd jump the gun on what I assumed would be a good move and lose my advantage. 

I gotta say, I really appreciate the support of many on this site in the goal of teaching beginners to learn to play their best game. I've almost reached my first goal of 600. My goal for the year is to reach 1000. 

Always taking advice, always open to critiques of my games. I've already had some great help here. 

Thanks again. Long-winded post over. 

Congratulations.  I find the 1400 bots harder to beat than the 1500's (David is my personal arch nemesis!).  Good luck on keeping it going.

Oooooh David Bot. That was another one that frustrated me for quite a few games. Glad I wasn't the I only one. Thanks for the support, buddy. 

Since your diamond member have you checked out the study guides here on this site. They have a lot good teaching material there. Diamond members can access everything in the study guides. 

https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory

I've had the same struggle with the Antonio bot for a while, but after a few games I realized something: He is inconsistent in his quality of play. Sometime he plays to his level, sometimes he plays like a 1700 who has good positional and tactical skills and makes no obvious mistakes whatsoever, and sometimes he plays like a 1200 who makes obvious one move blunders here and there. Like these games for example:

Don't tell me a real 1500 would lose to someone who played like this.

Nonetheless, congrats on finally beating your arch nemesis bot (even though I can't play him myself cause no membership).

Funny thing is that only took me two or three games to defeat Antonio. I just beat him actually. And you're right he makes some very unusual tactical mistakes for a level 1500 Bot. Matteo and David have definitely been the biggest challenges for me thus far. I am glad to have defeated them and now be testing my skills against the advanced Bots. I also appreciate the games you posted. Definitely weird how a couple of the intermediate bots were easier to play against were harder to play against than the first advanced one.

Still working on Mateo. As for David...

He frustrated me for a couple of weeks, and then I beat him with Fool's Mate. That felt surreal.

Congrats. I found Mateo mostly easy but Nelson took me 20 or so games to complete 

Interesting.. Nelson only took me one or two tries. Mateo had me fuming at times.

What's also weird is his description: Antonio prides himself on being a "balanced" player.

There's also the Isabel bot, who a lot of times would give me a real struggle and other times would play like this:

Nice. I'm trying to work my way through the bots as well. Currently stuck on Lorenzo. Beaten one of the other 1800's but so far not Lorenzo. Think we've had a draw but I need those 3 crowns

The King's Indian guy? Actually, now that I think about it, most of the chess.com bots that specialize in a certain opening (at least that's what the descriptions say) are either f-pawn pushers or King's Indian players. Nelson being the only exception I can think of.

You don't need a lot of books to study. Get one book on tactics, one book on strategy, one book on how to attack the king, one end game book. Read them over and over until you really know them. Also include a game collection book. This will help your chess game more than buying a lot of different books

Thank you, buddy. Any books you could recommend? I'm planning on purchasing a few this weekend and I'm trying to get some ideas.

I'm on Antonio 1500

@AnNamCMRouse

Yea, this is from when I was getting excited battling bots. 🤣🤣 Lost it's luster around the 1700 or 1800 bots. Now I'm just playing people and trying to progress. I'm WAY further now than I was then. 😅🤣