What's your opinion about playing bots?

I recently played the Antonio bot in challenge mode without a timer.  It was fun & I won 17-38 in 41 moves.  It played Kf2 in the opening for no reason, a kind of bongcloud variant that analysis called a mistake.  I played it in the app, got the 3 crowns reward & didn't archive it so I'm posting the result with the following question.  What's your opinion about playing bots?  I know I'd rather play people but I think bots are okay once in awhile.  Feel free to share your thoughts & any experiences.  Thanks!  🙂

"What's your opinion about playing bots?"
++ Playing artificially weakened bots is useless. They err, but in a non-human way.
Playing a strong engine is good practice.

Thank you Zercs69 & tygxc for your thoughts. I agree with both of you.

"To be original" I will answer with a game against Antonio.bot (the bot cited by the op)

First it is possible to play with time against bot on chess.com and I play with time 10m+5s per move to maintain time pressure and because playing without time is too much training or "fake game".

1) d4 I can play "grotesque anti-bot techniques" like "the Hippopotamus Defence" or make kind of wall and wait that the bot (not being at maximum level) going to make errors then go for the sanction but I don't do that because even if I win my victory will have no value or interest. We have to play like if it was a human, I mean by not developing a bad "fake gameplay" against a human but which is justified in relation to anomalies of artificial intelligence.

1)...f5 when the human plays Dutch Defense it is often to play an aggressive and dangerous game with variations like for example 2) c4 Nf6 3) Nf3 g6 4) g3 Bg7 5) Bg2 o-o 6) o-o d6 7) Nc3 Nc6 8) d5 Ne5 9) Nxe5 dxe5 but when the bot plays Dutch Defense it is often to play solid or timorous like with for example Stonewall.

2) c4 there are plenty of gambits or dangerous variations in Dutch Defense but against a bot all these variations are strategically bad played.

Even if the bot can be humanized, playing against a bot creates a different reality than playing against a human and therefore we are developing a gameplay that cannot be like for example imo Alexei Shirov's gameplay.

2)...e6 3) Nf3 Nf6 4) g3 Bb4+ 5) Bd2 c5 6) Bxb4 cxb4 7) Bg2 Qc7 8) Nbd2 Nc6 9) o-o Qd6 This is the kind of "clown bot move" that creates weird games because the bot tends to play without any real strategy.

A human often plays with strategic plans and ideas and consequently there is a strategic fight with him but with bot imo the difficulty is above all technical.

10) e3 b6 this move is strong to me because I find myself in difficulty due to "no longer having strategic gameplay".

11) Qc2 my strategy is to activate all my pieces and prepare a central breakthrough.

In general closed games should be avoided because they can be more difficult to win but open games are dangerous and the bot due to its inhuman calculation abilities can quickly gain the upper hand through unforeseen moves linked to the tactical.

11)...Ba6 12) b3 Bb7 13) Rfd1 o-o 14) Rac1 h5 Antonio.bot can afford to play "clown moves" because the problem is that I don't have "a strategic victory pattern" just I hope my central breakthrough pays off.

15) h3 Qe7 16) Nf1 Qe8 17) d5 I have time pressure I can't do what I did against Ahmed.bot for example i.e take the time to calculate and therefore play a safer gameplay.

Personally I find it important to play with time because against humans we always have the story of the pressure of time and there are ways to get there without time which are finally fake.

17)...Ne7 18) dxe6 I am especially thinking of not closing the game otherwise I have little hope of being able to win and as it is a bot operating on a strong algorithm after a while "it will stop its clowning and massacre me" with a series of strong bot moves.

18)...dxe6 19) Rd6 Be4 20) Qd2 Nc8 and it's over for my Rook but there is a strategic element that is my Bg2 can be or become stronger than a Rook in middlegame.

21) Rd4 e5 22) Rxe4 fxe4 23) Ng5 Qd7 24) Nxe4 Rd8 25) Qc2 Kh8 as the position is more open it is "easier to play" and "Antonio.bot's clown moves" become more problematic 26) Nfd2 Rb8 27) Ng5 h5 28) g4 g6 29) Ndf3 Rb7 30) Nxh4 Rbd2 31) Nxg6+ then it becomes easy to win.

I enjoy playing the bots primarily because there is no time limit. In the middle of a game I can go and do something and come back to it.

I wish they made more human errors.

Thanks Alchessblitz for your example game against Antonio bot. I like Rxe4 on move #22 & Nxe4 on move #24. Nxg6+ on move #31 shows the lower rated bots make some bad blunders. Sometimes people miss big threats like this too but almost never at higher ELO levels. Thanks chesslover0003 for your thoughts as well. The lower rated bots do make moves that humans probably wouldn't. The fun of this goes away. I like no time constraints also.

I'd really like to hear any of your stories about defeating bots.

I like playing the bots as it suits me. I like the no time control aspect. They do make weird moves at times, and some of the lower bots (like 1300 and below) are nothing like humans at that (or even lower) ratings. Antonio is about where the "bot blunders" start being less obvious (most of the time at least). Another thing I like about playing bots is that they generally seem to resort to particular opening repertoire, so you can use them to guide your opening studies. I find Antonio, for example, with the Black plays 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 or 1. e4 e6 on the majority of games. So with White I know I can practice any one of my 1. e4 e5 games (Italian, Scotch Gambit, King's Gambit) or work on playing against the French. It will play other defences occasionally, I think I've had the Caro-Kan twice, a few Sicilians, a couple Scandinavians, and a Modern, but the vast majority of games are double King Pawn followed by the French. That let's me focus on those types of games for now. Once I have those opening lines well entrenched in my head, I will have to work on playing White against the Sicilian, which is a larger study than the above (for now I just play the Grand Prix Attack, but eventually will branch out) and the Caro-Kan. However, I don't want to spend all my time on opening study, but more on middle game tactics, so being able to limit myself to a few lines in a small set of openings let's me get into familiar positions from which to focus on my middle game play. So knowing Antonio, for example, is likely to oblige on the opening phase, that is good for me. And knowing that the bot will, at some point, make some poor choices, it keeps me on the look out for how to both recognize those mistakes and, hopefully, how to exploit them. But, given bot blunders are of a different nature to human blunders, it's hard to say how well that would transfer. On the other hand, as the higher rated bots will often exploit your own oversights, playing a decent bot can help train you with regards to your own "board blindness". Of course, once the bot is at the undefeatable level, they're more likely to discourage you, making you think every move is bad, so I think it is important to find a bot you can beat, but don't beat every game. Some bots you will find you can always come back to win even if you blunder once or twice, and that is not good, even if it pumps up the ego when you're tilted.

Anyway, while to get really good at chess you have to play actual humans, I'm long past the stage where getting really good is achievable for me. I like the luxury of no time controls, and the ability to select which bot I feel like playing, rather than going for a lucky dip in the rating pool. For those wanting to gain a high level of skill, bots can be used as a useful training supplementary tool, but they are no substitution for playing slow games against an equal strength human opponent.

Thanks GirlsPlayBetter for your comment & I agree. Thanks AngusByers for yours as well & I also agree. AngusByers basically said it all. Bots are great for practicing ideas. It's excellent to find a bot that challenges you but doesn't destroy you always. Most important, the best games are with humans. 🙂

they help you understand chess if you are a beganer

Right on, Localmexican156. 🙂

I don't know if bots can be useful or not. I honestly don't like playing against them.

At some point they make a stupid mistake to give you a chance to take advantage, you know it and you wait for it. This already takes away a lot of the unpredictability that is ( as far as I'm concerned ) the spice of fun. But most importantly, competing with a machine set up with huge handicaps to give you a chance – otherwise you wouldn't beat it even once in a hundred years – doesn't make much sense as a competition, to me.

Every once in a while, I use bots to check how a game could or should have gone from a certain position, if I had made other moves. But in any case, I don't enjoy it.

I don't like playing bots, i'd rather play an actual human ._.

Yes, bots, particularly weak ones, are set up to make mistakes, but then, if you're playing a human under super-GM level, they too will make mistakes and we know that, so also should be on the lookout. I think there's something to knowing the bot is programmed to make errors, while humans make errors despite not trying to, but in the end, whether your opponent is a bot or a human you can be sure they will make a mistake at some point. Mind you, bot mistakes can be real howlers, and I agree, when they just decide to hang their Queen as their "error of choice", it does make for an unsatisfying win - but it's the same if a human opponent does that.

Thanks medelpad, Hoffman713, xX_Kyo_Xx & AngusByers for sharing your thoughts. No matter how you feel I hope we all agree chess is fun. 🙂

Human opponents offer a different level of unpredictability, creativity and psychological challenge that bots cannot replicate.

Yea, my friend ChessMasteryOfficial understands. Thanks for the comment. 🙂

my opinion: unnecessary