Fangirl Three wrote:

And yet it said your initial knight move was a 'blunder'.

Why didn't it take your knight with its f7 pawn?

It was, theoretically, a blunder by me but that level of bot isn't smart enough to take advantage of it.

Every level of bot is programmed to make mistakes. The lower the level, the greater the mistakes. The low ones are designed to not bother protecting their rooks and queens. Also, they're designed to miss the opportunity to capture your pieces at critical moments. That's why it didn't take my pawn.

I found, with the bots, that the best way to learn is to play repeatedly against the toughest one, not caring that you're being massacred every time. You quickly learn what it's not a good idea to do. Then, when you tackle the lower bots, you find you can walk all over them.

It's hard to learn from just playing the lower ones because they let you get away with too much and, therefore, you never really improve.

Fangirl Three wrote:

But the knight one I couldn't crack. I quickly queened my pawn, but for the life of me I couldn't win with that nasty knight helicoptering around and putting me in check every time I thought I'd got the enemy king boxed in.

I did learn one thing though, to keep my king and queen on the same coloured squares so that the knight couldn't fork them.

Personally, I'd concentrate on chasing the knight around the board with my king and queen. At some point, you'll either manage to trap it and capture it, or it'll end up in a line with your opponent's king and you can attack both simultaneously with your queen.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:

Every level of bot is programmed to make mistakes. The lower the level, the greater the mistakes. The low ones are designed to not bother protecting their rooks and queens. Also, they're designed to miss the opportunity to capture your pieces at critical moments. That's why it didn't take my pawn.

Based on something I read in a computer magazine in 1983 I assumed that the lower level bots just looked fewer moves ahead.

Quote :

I found, with the bots, that the best way to learn is to play repeatedly against the toughest one, not caring that you're being massacred every time. You quickly learn what it's not a good idea to do.

I shall take your advice (again). Because I noticed that the endgame practice bot is pretty shrewd - it's very good at tricking you into stalemates, and with the knight and bishop ones I learnt very quickly that certain opening moves by me always led to instant victory for the computer.

Quote :

Personally, I'd concentrate on chasing the knight around the board with my king and queen.

I didn't think of that, I'll try that too.

Chess Trap to Trick Your Opponent: Tennison Gambit Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Variation.



That is very useful information.

I still haven't managed to checkmate K+N with K+Q.

I would suggest getting your queen into the very centre of the board. That way, it's attacking the maximum number of squares, which increases its chances of attacking both the king and knight at the same time. Then try closing in on the knight with your king, forcing it to retreat. With any luck, at some point, both it and the king will be in your queen's firing line.

I played chess once.

Didn't like it.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:

I would suggest getting your queen into the very centre of the board. That way, it's attacking the maximum number of squares, which increases its chances of attacking both the king and knight at the same time. Then try closing in on the knight with your king, forcing it to retreat. With any luck, at some point, both it and the king will be in your queen's firing line.

This was good advice - in subsequent practices, I've moved the queen to the centre 4 squares as soon as I can, and it has meant that I've dominated the action, rather than being chased round the board like I was before.

The problem is that I can't seem to get the knight away from the king far enough to fork them with my queen. It always escapes and puts me in check so I have to draw back.

And I get preoccupied with making sure that my king and queen are on different coloured squares so that the knight can't fork them.

I've just beaten the Chess.com computer with it set at "Super Grandmaster" level.


 

It took just 21 moves.

And now I've just beaten it at its maximum setting.

In 35 moves.


 


I think there might be something wrong with it.

I myself became disillusioned with chess after failing to solve the K+Q v K+N conundrum.

Quote :

Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent

Moscow incident occurred because child ‘violated’ safety rules by taking turn too quickly, says official

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-grabs-and-breaks-finger-of-seven-year-old-opponent-moscow

13:30 onwards.

I wish you'd put up just one video which doesn't have a still picture of the presenter that makes me want to slap them.