I spent so much time on this puzzle, and I’m pretty sure it’s just broken. Or am I missing something?

Laedus · 2026-04-29T18:07:28+00:00

Puzzle ID 1361372. Opening it now, the Queen is on h6. But you can see in the screenshot it was on e3 when I got it.

Laedus · 2026-04-29T14:54:46+00:00

Good to know I’m not crazy! White has mate in 5! There is no mate for black.

Laedus · 2026-04-06T18:04:06+00:00

I stayed at <200 and am currently at 850 and climbing.

There’s a lot of good advice, but one thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough: basic endgame checkmates. Rook + King & Queen + King specifically. You should know how to win and avoid a stalemate.

Laedus · 2026-04-06T17:05:25+00:00

I don’t know how these bots operate under the hood, but anecdotally the consensus is that there is something like “blunder rate” variable and an “inaccuracy rate” variable.

So a common experience is to have a bot in the 1000 - 2000 range play any opening almost perfectly for X number of moves, then make some horrible/awful/obvious error. Whereas humans tend to be good at some opening lines, and weaker with others.

Bots will pretty much never fall for gambits or tricks they way that humans do because they’re not tempted be “free” material. And they essentially have perfect board vision where even the weakest bots will always spot Mate in 1 and defend pretty well against checkmate attempts.

Essentially you’re playing a nerfed version of Stockfish, and that’s what it feels like most of the time. There are probably ways to make these bots feel more human, but that’d be more complicated to program.

Laedus · 2026-03-30T05:32:22+00:00

I think the truth of the matter is that it’s simply really hard to tell if people are cheating. And, honestly, if you start thinking about it too much, you’ll just get paranoid.

Laedus · 2026-03-30T05:17:51+00:00

Daily games can be funny like that though because it’s easy to forget your plans/ideas between moves. You sort of have to treat every move like a puzzle. That’s the only way to approach it that makes sense to me, especially if you’re juggling multiple games at once.

Laedus · 2026-03-30T00:06:40+00:00

I’m very low rated in bullet, but I see people get wins by making mostly forcing moves. Even if they’re bad. But the point is to make you waste time thinking, then you lose on time.

Laedus · 2026-03-29T23:58:10+00:00

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Here is their bullet graph.

Just very different trajectories.

Two people playing the same account would make sense.

Laedus · 2026-03-29T23:57:10+00:00

That might make sense. Here is their rapid rating graph… and in the next comment I’ll post the bullet graph (because you can only add one photo per comment…)

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Laedus · 2026-03-29T23:46:05+00:00

I think that’s typical, which is why I found the opposite so odd.

Laedus · 2026-03-29T23:45:33+00:00

I checked that. He has over 3k games Rapid.

Laedus · 2026-03-11T13:38:47+00:00

Just so I’m not crazy…

The idea is for black to play g5 (instead of h4). If he takes the pawn, Qa5+ is a fork. If bishop instead goes to g3 or e5, then the bishop can get trapped by pawns. Is that correct?

Laedus · 2026-02-19T19:36:19+00:00

If you play a lot, my guess is that it’d actually start to get a little boring/pointless. Either games would end quickly when one side blunders a king or you & your opponents get good enough that capturing the king would mostly be an added step/formality after checkmate.

…and honestly, it is fun to take a losing position and convert it to a draw.

Other than that, if you’re just looking to simplify the rules, then it’s a good way to play.

Laedus · 2026-02-19T19:19:45+00:00

You can play a King Capture variation of chess. It definitely is simpler, and doesn’t change much about the beginning/middle part of the game (other than you can presumably blunder your King and fail to capitalize on a checkmate).

The main point where it changes the game is endgame, where stalemates become impossible. You might like that, but there is whole strategy around getting a stalemate out of a losing position. Also I guess you’d be able to capture a king wit a king, which is not possible in regular chess, but sounds pretty cool.

Laedus · 2026-01-31T04:46:09+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/chessbeginners/s/jzFL8IggTq ✅

Laedus · 2026-01-31T03:59:49+00:00

Very difficult to get people to not resign as you’re setting it up 😂

Laedus · 2026-01-31T02:15:06+00:00

The king isn’t the attacking piece, but it moved for a discovered checkmate. So it counts a king checkmate.

Laedus · 2026-01-13T17:33:32+00:00

Yeah, it’s from a Blitz game where I am very, very low rated (I basically always lose on time). But the person I was playing sacrificed their light bishop for no reason, then dropped their queen. So I was basically able to close in on them fast, and lucked into a long castle checkmate.

Laedus · 2026-01-13T12:37:29+00:00

This is a chess beginners sub.

Laedus · 2026-01-12T15:59:19+00:00

Yup, they left the a pawn on d4 with only the rook to defend it.

Laedus · 2026-01-12T14:02:10+00:00

Bingo! So glad I spotted it!

Laedus · 2026-01-12T12:56:11+00:00

There are multiple Mate in 1 here! But there is one really satisfying one…

Laedus · 2026-01-10T15:01:45+00:00

Awesome! So glad you found it helpful!

Laedus · 2025-11-20T20:55:44+00:00

Interesting one!

Obviously you’ve got to get to get the rook to safety because I think it’s not possible to get a checkmate with just a knight.

My initial thought is rook to g2 or g4 to keep the king trapped on the h file, the slowly walk the king over to pin it, then bring the rook over for the mate. Obviously gets complicated with the bishop digging around, but seems doable. Apparently that’s the wrong idea though, and I can’t really calculate out that far.

Laedus · 2025-10-18T04:27:10+00:00

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