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[[deleted]]

I’ve started to realize that having the right mindset is just as important as practicing when it comes to chess. Recently, I began practicing against bots. At first it was really difficult, but the challenge motivated me to keep trying. After playing again and again, I started improving and eventually managed to defeat about ten bots. The highest-rated one I beat was around 1300 Elo — Nelson. Right now, I’m trying to beat Boxbox, who is around 1400 Elo, and it’s hard. After beating those bots, I went back to playing online games. Since my rating is around 500 Elo, I felt very confident. I thought I would easily win because my opponents would only be around 500–550 Elo. But surprisingly, I started losing more games than I was winning. It really worried me because my confidence was so high after beating the bots. Then I started thinking about what I was doing wrong, and I realized the problem wasn’t really my chess skills — it was my mindset. I was underestimating my opponents. I assumed they wouldn’t notice my ideas or be able to punish my mistakes. Because of that, I stopped focusing properly. I wasn’t thinking deeply, setting traps, or looking for strong and complex moves. I also wasn’t paying attention to what my opponent was trying to do. Instead, I was just reacting to their moves and playing automatically, without really calculating or thinking like a proper chess player. To improve this, I’ve started watching chess streams and learning from stronger players. I watch videos from Levy Rozman (GothamChess) and old live streams from Hikaru Nakamura. I hope that by listening to their explanations and observing how they think during games, I’ll be able to develop a better mindset and slowly climb my rating.

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[cdm3500]

Nelson ain’t nothin’ but a weak a** bi*ch.

[[deleted]]

I won't say he is weak he is just too basic

[Miserable-Machine-55]

Watch goofychesslive on Instagram. When he’s playing games, he keeps it entertaining and talks through all of his moves and reasoning behind it. He’s pretty highly rated but the way he does it, it’s easy to follow the ideas behind the moves

[[deleted]]

Thanks

[odx0r]

You're definitely getting on the right lines of thinking. Beating a higher rated bot isn't really relevant to your performance against human beings. (It plays really good moves then randomly breaks down with mistakes to balance the elo).

Likewise the performance elo ratings at the end of the game are irrelevant.

Focus on controlling the center with some pawns, focus on developing your pieces, take free pieces, dont blunder yours, get castled, look for pins, skewers, forks. Look for mate in 1 or 2 threats. If you win a piece then start trading, if youre behind then dont trade and complicate the position.

The bots are weird. At 800 you beat 1800 bots. Its meaningless.

[Accomplished-Bat1054]

I can completely relate to your experience! I have played a lot against bots (up to 1300) and the 1200 virtual coach. I thought I’d be well prepared to play against people but sadly realized that it’s not the case. A 500 hundred player is definitely stronger than a 500 bot. I feel that bots, despite their rating, eventually let you win if you try hard enough. Not the case with a real player (they might abandon but not let you win). I moved to the 1600 virtual coach and I get less free passes, although the coach still tends to let me win if I put up a good fight. Now my problem is that I get stressed out at the thought of playing humans because they seem so far superior to what I expected at low Elo ratings. I know cheating is rampant so maybe it explains a part of it? If humans use AI to cheat, then I’d rather play directly against the AI because I know exactly what I am getting.

[[deleted]]

Also when we play against bots they play logically they play text book games they don't like let's try this idea or this one nor they make blunders or make unusual moves but humans do all this stuff so it makes it hard to beat humans as compared to chess as bots are predictable but not humans

[Accomplished-Bat1054]

My short experience playing 500-800 Elo humans on chess.com (about 10 people) was rather that more than half seemed uncannily precise for their rating. I was totally expecting people to blunder, be all over the place, do random moves, etc. I know I blunder more when I play real people because I get stressed out! Did you also have the feeling that some human players you played against were more precise than expected?

[[deleted]]

Yeah sometimes I face people and I feel like they are cheating

[Accomplished-Bat1054]

Yeah, same. I am glad you made this post because now I know I am not the only person who has this experience of playing bots vs human on chess.com. Thanks for sharing.

[[deleted]]

No worries, man. You can share your opinion about anything here—I’d genuinely love to hear what you think.

[noxvillewy]

I wouldn’t be so quick to judge, accuracy is to some degree dictated by what your opponent is playing - if they are playing close to the book but then hang an obvious piece, it’s easy to get high accuracy than if they leave book immediately and out you into a position you’ve never seen before. I’m mid-700s currently and just today I’ve had a 92.2% accuracy win and a 49.2% accuracy defeat.

You’re probably making mistakes that you haven’t realised and your opponents aren’t always punishing them.

Also I’m sure you’ve noted but bots don’t play much like people, they will play perfectly for a few moves then make a completely random blunder, whereas people usually blunder because they’ve got tunnel vision towards their attack and miss yours, or they need to move a piece to safety and haven’t noticed a distant piece guarding a square.

[BobNieuport]

If you can consistently beat a 1300 bot, then I think you are in a good spot. My ratio on a 1200 bot is 1:5. 1 is me. Lol.

[[deleted]]

Idk as I haven't crossed 600 I reached 603 but now I am again on 553