How to Beat Your First Chess Bot

Are you ready to rage against the machine and score your first win against a Chess.com Beginner bot? We're going to break down a winning game plan against bots in the 250 to 700 rating range. Get ready to plant a flag or two in the mountain, hop to the hill, build your dream house, capture the flag, take free samples, get that promotion you've always wanted, and climb the ladder to success! 

Plant a Flag (or two) in the Mountain

I had the honor of attending a lecture by former United States Chess Champion and grandmaster Yasser Seirawan. He was teaching beginners and shared an incredibly insightful way to think about the opening. I recall he shared a blank canvas, or position, if you will:

The chessboard is flat—or is it?

All of the squares appear equal in value, and the general terrain seems flat. Grandmaster Seirawan pointed out that the chessboard is not flat, as it appears, but rather, there are certain squares that are at a much higher elevation than the others. He discussed the "inner center" as the "chess mountain."

"The inner center" or "chess mountain" are the squares e4, d4, e5, and d5. Surrounding the "inner center" or "chess mountain" is the "outer center," or as he described it, "the chess hill." These squares are not as elevated as the chess mountain, but they overlook the flatlands outside of the central squares. The "outer center," or "chess hill," surrounds the mountain (squares highlighted in orange). 

Grandmaster Seirawan's point is that you should plant a flag (pawn) or two in the "inner center," claiming your territory on the chess mountain. He then recommended developing your pieces (pawns are pawns, everything else is considered a piece) onto the chess hill, supporting the mountain. This means we might see the sketches of a dream opening look like this: 

Step One: Plant a flag (or two) in the mountain!

Planting a flag in the mountain, establishing "camp human" on the e4-square.

1.e4 is an excellent opening move, claiming central control and opening up pathways for the queen, light-squared bishop, and knight. If allowed, we'll happily plant a second flag, or pawn, in the chess mountain with 2.d4. 

Step Two: Activate your kingside pieces and prepare to castle!

After claiming your fair share of the inner center, we want to develop our kingside pieces (the light-squared bishop on c4 and knight on g1) to clear the path for our king to castle. 

To the chess hill!

Our kingside knight hops to the hill, controlling the d4- and e5-squares in the "inner center," or chess mountain. The light-squared bishop darts to the explosive c4-square on the hill, fighting for the center and pointing toward the f7-pawn—a single check away from the opposing king!

Step Three: Move the king into its dream home (castling)

Moving the king to g1 automatically castles the king into its dream home.

Castling kingside is a great way to tuck your king into its cozy castling cottage, nestled behind three loyal pawns. This also brings the rook closer to the future central action. 

Step Four: Develop the rest of your pieces and fight for the center!

Now it's time to complete our development. When in doubt, remember the phrase, "new move, new piece." Meaning with each new move, you should develop a new piece whenever possible. The new pieces highlighted in blue all enter the game, supporting the inner and outer centers. This completes our opening dream—but will it ever become a reality?

Thanks for the opening lesson, but how does this help me defeat a Beginner bot?

Having a general idea of where your pieces belong and where to move your king to safety can help you as you navigate the opening jungle. As we'll see, this is a good game plan to follow, but we often won't reach this exact position in our games. The bot will also have moves to play, and we might be surprised by "free stuff" as early as move one!

Allow me to introduce you to the Beginner bot Juan: 

We're going to look at some snapshots taken from actual games played against the Beginner bots. If you want to see the entire game, you can see a collection of instructive games at the end of the article. As we play against these bots, I want you to remember this phrase: "Prepare for the best, look out for the weird." 

 Against Juan, I opened the game with 1.e4. He remarked, "That's a great way to control the center." How did he respond after sharing these words of wisdom? He moved the "forget about it" pawn, the f-pawn, two squares forward: 

Instead of planting a flag in the mountain by advancing the pawn in front of his king two squares, he decided to move the f7-pawn forward. The pawn on f5 is now attacking our central pawn. This feels threatening. 

When a pawn attacks another pawn, there are always two sides to this capturing tension. The f5-pawn is attacking e4, but this also means our pawn on e4 is attacking the f5-pawn. You'll be surprised how far you can make it by keeping your material safe and looking out for generous gifts from your opponent. The f5-pawn is free. Let's capture it! 

We captured the f5-pawn for free, and now our queen may pay the exposed king a visit. This is why you want to "forget about" moving the f-pawn early in the game. It exposes your king, and it might just lose material. Thanks for the pawn, Juan!  

"Capture the Flag"

Another reason I wanted you to enjoy grandmaster Seirawan's description of the "chess mountain" is that we can build upon his concept and play a fun mini-game with the bots: "Capture the Flag!" When we plant a pawn in the "inner center" or chess mountain, it can be exposed to attack. Take, for example, my game against the adaptive Beginner bot, Jimmy: 

We both planted a flag, or pawn, in the chess mountain (e4 and e5). On my second move, the kingside knight hopped onto the hill (f3-square), attacking Jimmy's e5-pawn. One good reply is to move his knight to the chess hill (b8 to c6), defending the pawn. You'll be amazed how often your opponent (carbon-based or otherwise) will simply ignore this threat and play some other move. Let's see what Jimmy played:

Jimmy develops his bishop to a healthy diagonal, fighting for the center. This is a good "general" move to keep in mind, but Jimmy didn't ask: "Did my opponent's last move threaten anything?" By not asking that question, he allows us to win a pawn or "capture the flag." 

Just like that, we captured a pawn for free! When you face a Beginner bot, get used to accepting gifts. If you can capture a pawn or piece for free, it is usually a good thing! 

Do bots byte? A cautionary tale. 

We've set up a great opening game plan by fighting for the chess mountain, hill, and castling our king to safety. Now we are ready to capture our opponent's unprotected (or "hanging") pieces and pawns. Unlike the typical Beginner bot, we also need to protect our pieces and pawns from threats. In the game, Jimmy continued with an incredibly dangerous but ultimately dubious attacking idea. 

When your opponent moves the queen out early, look out! Jimmy attacks both our unprotected e4-pawn and our f2-pawn (with the bishop's help), which is only defended by the king. How do you feel about "new move, new piece," and developing our knight to defend the center?

We develop a knight to defend e4, which defends one threat, but it doesn't add a second defender for the critical f2 pawn. In this case, the bots do byte with checkmate!

A bot can blunder a pawn and deliver checkmate in only the first four moves of the game! The queen captures the f2-pawn, attacking our king. We cannot escape the check, and notice the king cannot capture the queen because that would expose the king to the dark squared bishop's attack on c5. Just like that, we went from up a pawn to down a king!

Let's rewind the footage. Jimmy's queen is both attacking our unprotected pawn on e4 and threatening to capture the f2-pawn, delivering checkmate. The queen is attacking two critical pawns. How can we develop a piece and defend both of our endangered pawns at the same time? In the game, I countered Jimmy's aggressive queen move with... an aggressive queen move!

My queen defends the hanging e4 pawn and is now a second defender for the critical f2-pawn (two attackers balanced by two defenders on f2). We also combine defense with attack, as our queen and knight are now both attacking f7. To beat these bots, we need to both take free stuff and prevent our opponent from doing the same against us! 

🎁 Nine moves, four gifts 🎁

In another adventure with Juan, in the first nine moves, he generously donated three pawns and a rook—absolutely for free! Let's see how we keep our pieces safe and win his pieces! We join the game on move four: 

In just four moves, we have completed the first two steps in our opening game plan by planting two pawns in the center and developing our kingside pieces. We are ready to complete step three—castle our king! Well, that's the plan, but Juan has other ideas in mind with his next move...

Before we automatically complete step three and castle, we always want to ask if our opponent is threatening anything and if they are giving away free stuff. The answer to both questions is a resounding "YES!" Juan continues to forget about not moving the "forget about it" f-pawn, which now threatens to capture our central flag. Remember: when pawns attack other pawns, the opposite is also true—our pawn on e4 can simply accept Juan's gift for free!

We happily accepted Juan's gift on f5, but this doesn't mean he's always in the giving mood. Our opponent makes a dangerous move, hoping to receive a gift in return!

We accepted the pawn gift on f5, and now Juan plants a flag in the mountain by pushing the queen pawn to the d5-square. This is a dangerous move. Let's practice always asking the first two important questions each time our opponent makes a new move.

1) Does my opponent's last move threaten anything? 

Juan's d5-pawn is threatening to capture our light-squared bishop on c4. This threat is clear, but it is also revealing the light-squared bishop's attack against our f5-pawn. We need to be careful to avoid returning the gift of material to Juan. This leads us to the second question. 

2) Is my opponent offering a favorable capture?

When we examine the diagonal drama between Juan's d5-pawn and our light-squared bishop, it is true that our bishop is also attacking this pawn. To decide whether Juan is offering a gift, we need to know if the pawn is unprotected or whether we'll gain material by trading pieces. Let's capture the d5-pawn and find out. 

Capturing the d5-pawn feels great, especially as our bishop is eyeing the unprotected rook on a8. The problem is that the d5-pawn is defended by the queen, so now Juan could capture our bishop.

As the capturing dust settled, we captured a pawn on d5 (1 point), and Juan captured our bishop (3 points). In this case, we were the gift-giving player, losing two points in this trade! If you're not sure about the "chess marketplace system," we have a lesson that will help you decide which trades are favorable and which ones you should avoid. 

Juan's dangerous central pawn thrust has endangered our bishop, and he is not offering a favorable capture. Where there is strength, however, we may also find weakness. 

Juan's d5-pawn is attacking our bishop, and it opens a window for Juan's light-squared bishop to attack our unprotected pawn on f5. These are strengths, but a huge weakness is this pawn also opened a window, or diagonal, directly leading to his king. We always want to think about the most forcing moves in chess: checks, captures, and attacks. Our endangered bishop is ready to combine defense with attack, paying Juan's king a visit. 

Our bishop dodges the diagonal dart Juan threw at us with the pawn, and now we're checking the king. I highlighted Juan's sidelined knight on a6 because if Juan blocks the check with the bishop, we could then capture the knight for free. There isn't a good move for Juan here, but he asks us another diagonal question by advancing the c-pawn. 

Juan combines attack with defense. He shields his king from the bishop's attack and also attacks our bishop. Our first question ("Does my opponent's last move threaten anything?") is answered—our bishop is under attack.

Now, let's ask the second question: Is my opponent offering a favorable capture? There are two directions involved in this diagonal dispute. The c6-pawn is attacking our bishop, but this also means our bishop is attacking the pawn. Since there's nothing protecting this pawn, it's simply another gift, compliments of our opponent! 

The bishop captures the pawn (another free point) and is now forking the king and unprotected rook. A fork is a double attack—Juan is going to have to cough up even more material. Instead of blocking with the bishop, he decides to get adventurous with his king. 

Juan's king stumbles out of check but is now exposed to future attacks. Before we focus on the king, let's collect the free rook in the corner. 

Our bishop has zigzagged its way to the other side of the board, collecting a five-point gift—the rook! We'll finish our example of how to reach a winning position after Juan moves his queen to c7. 

Juan's queen is attacking our c2- and h2-pawns, but these pawns are well protected. Juan's central flag, however, is teetering, so it's time for another powerful forcing move. 

Our bishop captures a third free pawn on its diagonal odyssey, checking Juan's king as a cherry on top! In just nine moves, we have accepted four free gifts (three pawns and a rook) for a total of eight free points. Assuming Juan doesn't share any more gifts, we're ready to castle our king and activate our eager pieces from the first-rank bench. 

I'm winning! Now, how do I actually win the game? 

In most games against the Beginner bots, we can follow our general opening recipe, take free stuff and make favorable captures, keep our own pieces safe, and even within the first dozen moves of the game, we may already be up a huge material advantage. 

After enjoying the opening harvest, we can capture the rest of the bot's pieces, reaching a position like this against Oliver. 

The simplest way to win the game is to promote our pawn into a queen, and if there is a rook on the scene, deliver a ladder checkmate! In this position, I'd love to push the c5-pawn to the promised land, but there is a pesky pawn defending the square in front of our promotion-happy pawn. How do we solve this problem? Trade down and promote the pawn! 

Our bishop happily trades itself for the knight. Although both of these pieces are worth 3 points, we are eager to make trades when we are up so much material. The bishop attacks the pawn, which cannot both defend itself and dispute our c-pawn's path to promotion. Oliver understandably captured my bishop with the pawn. 

Thanks to trading our bishop for the knight, our pawn's path to promotion is now clear. To quote Seirawan, when it comes to pawns that do not have rival pawns blocking their path to promotion, known as passed pawns, "Push 'em baby!"

Our pawn marches up the board to receive its well-deserved promotion. When the pawn reaches c8, we can replace that pawn with any other unit besides a pawn or a king, so we almost always promote the pawn into a queen! Notice Oliver's king cannot chase our pawn to the promotion square because the rook has tucked the rival monarch into an "invisible box," unable to capture the rook because it is defended by our knight on f3. 

Life after promotion—continue climbing the ladder of success!

Now that we've promoted our pawn into a powerful queen, we can score a win for humanity by climbing a ladder—a ladder checkmate, that is! 

Our queen and rook are in perfect position to show off a clutch checkmate pattern, the ladder mate! The rook is guarding the horizontal line known as the fifth rank. The opposing monarch cannot move to any of those squares, so step by step, we are going to force the king up the board. Our queen can now climb to the sixth rank, attacking the king. 

The queen climbs to the sixth rank, confronting the endangered king. The rook protects the fifth rank, so the king can't run down the board. The king is forced to scramble to the seventh rank. 

The queen's step has cut off access to the sixth rank, so now it's the rook's turn to climb to the seventh rank. 

Step by step, we climb the ladder. The rook attacks the king, covering all the squares on the seventh rank. Our queen has the rook's back, defending the sixth rank, so the wobbly monarch stumbles to the back rank. 

The king makes its last stand on the back rank. Although it is attacking our rook, our queen is protecting the rook. The rook stands tall on the seventh rank, cutting the king off from the rest of the board. Now, we take the last step, climbing to the pinnacle of success: checkmate! 

The queen confronts the king at the top of the ladder, and there is no way to escape checkmate. Our queen and rook harmony beautifully demonstrated the power of the ladder checkmate. If you want to learn more about this awesome checkmate pattern that you'll enjoy unleashing against the bots, here's a lesson for you to start rooking and rolling up the ladder with two rooks! 

Bedazzle the Beginner Bots!

We've conquered mountains, climbed hills, castled into our dream home, accepted a bountiful harvest of free pieces, landed that dream promotion, and climbed the ladder to success. Life is good when playing against the Chess.com Beginner bots! 

As a bonus, I've included more instructive games you can enjoy in a game collection at the end of this article. Now, all that is left is to select a Beginner bot and share your adventure with us in the comments. You've got this! Happy bot bashing!  

 BONUS BOTS GAME COLLECTION