Playing the bots

Martin is more easier than Jimmy

Martin is more easier than Jimmy

Tilting a little this morning -- Antonio beat me up this morning while I was playing black a few times, before I finally beat him a couple of times.   Too many blunders/mistakes on my part.

Hi

I went 6-0-2 against the 1400 bots this morning.  I think the 1400 bots give me more trouble than the 1500 bots.    I usually win against the 1400's, but they still sometimes checkmate me out of the blue after I make a blunder.   ... and the checkmate should never be "out of the blue" -- my threat detection awareness needs a lot of improvement.

Still can't get to 6-0 against the three 1400 level bots (David, Ali and Mateo).  I was 5-0 yesterday and blundered with black (went 6-1).   Today I blundered with black against Ali and went 6-1 again.  Oh well, I'll keep trying.   The problem is that my accuracy goes down (mistakes/blunders go up) the longer I play in a row!

Do you find that the 1400 bots will consistently take advantage of your blunders? In playing humans lately, I've become uncomfortably aware of my tendency to leave myself open for back rank mates, even/especially when I'm clearly winning. It's both an awareness and a tempo problem I'm trying to fix and it's really holding my rapid (15|10) rating down A LOT. But looking at my games with the 1100-1200 bots, I find positions where they could have back-ranked me and didn't. Elena in particular doesn't seem to want to take advantage of my blunders, even when they'd be positionally AND materially to her benefit.

I take that back -- Sven will punish me if I blunder. Maybe. But Azeez, Laura, and Maria really seem to just leave my hanging pieces hanging, and I'm not sure that's helping me improve. I can consistently beat an 1100 bot by learning its quirks while a 700-800 human will beat me like a rented mule.

Yea, bots are bots and humans are humans!  I think the key to bots is to find the level where you can't win and then hang out in that range (that level and the one below) until you can consistently beat them (or at least 50%) and then move up.   Since there are three bots at each rating, it is hard to remember all the "quirks".   And Bots are fun because there is no real "pressure" -- you lose, you lose.   I did play one game against a real opponent a while ago and they hung their queen and disappeared (wasn't really "fun").  At some point in time, I should resolve to play humans.   10/0 is still too fast for me, but 15/10 seems OK.

Now while I can beat the 1400's almost all the time, I am going to keep playing them until I go undefeated against all three with white and black.

You've got the right idea for time control with humans. 15|10 is slow enough that if I'm taking my time and keeping my hand off the mouse until I'm sure of what I'm doing, I'll do okay. Anything faster than that and I turn into Blundor the Generous. And I'm not kidding about keeping my hand off the mouse. I move and then I take my hands off the keyboard and the mouse and put them in my lap, or at least I try to do that. If I'm poised to make my next move, it's almost always a bad move. If I'm certain of my response before my opponent has moved (or pre-moving?!?), I've missed something, and it's usually something horribly obvious. 15|10 gives me time to breathe and double-check. Bullet and Blitz just baffle me. If this pandemic nonsense ever ends, I have a feeling that OTB is going to take quite a bit of getting used to.

Oh, and Sven is trouncing me this morning due to silly mistakes. I apparently need more coffee -- or opening principles. Pro'ly more the latter than the former.