#ONLINE CHESS AGAINST THE COMPUTER FREE#

You might then get upset by the “weird” choices from humans. When you play against a computer, you are not 100% training for what you will face in a real game. This rating comes from playing against human opponents. Most of you reading this will want to improve your (online) rating. The best way to do so is also to train against humans! What is totally obvious has one serious flaw: you most likely want to improve your game against humans. But there will be downsides as well.Īs you will see, the main issue with playing against a chess computer is that you don’t train against a human. It can be fun to face off against the computer version of your favorite player/streamer.Īs you see, playing against a Chess Computer can have some upsides. Play against the bot-versions of famous chess players.(If the fear of losing rating points is something you struggle with, make sure to read my articles in the mindset category.) In that case, playing against computers can make sense, because you get some practice in and don’t risk losing rating points. Many chess improvers are intimidated to play “real” games online because they might lose some rating points. Amongst human opponents, the range of strengths and weaknesses will be much bigger. A 1500-rated Computer will play similarly in most games. As you can decide the rating of your computer opponent, you know what you’ll get. At least if the servers of are working… You don’t have to wait and can play against them any time of the day. Let’s dig into some of the upsides of playing against a Computer. If this sounds mysterious right now, I’m sure it will make sense after reading the whole article. My short answer would be: if you do it for enjoyment, yes, if you want to improve your games against humans, no. Pros And Cons Of Playing Against Computers We can finally say that playing chess is cool! Now that you know that is cool, let’s answer the question you came here for: Should you play against chess computers?

#ONLINE CHESS AGAINST THE COMPUTER FREE#

On the first of February, Daniel Rensch, CCO of posted a screenshot that shows their app as the Number 1 Free App on the IOS store.Īlso, Lichess, the best 100% free playing site, has increased traffic and Top Events such as the Tata Steel Chess tournament attracted huge viewership. Their servers are constantly struggling because the traffic in January was 40% higher than ever before. On January 19th for the first time got 1 Million visits in a single day via Google. This attention led to a huge increase in chess players online. Many articles were written featuring this cute cat-bot ( Wired, esports.gg…). From GM Hikaru Nakamura to Levy (Gotham Chess), the Botez sisters, and my amazing fiancée Alessia, everyone made a video trying to beat this bot.īut not only in Chess circles Mittens became famous instantly. This obviously attracted not only chess fans but also all content creators.

Mittens plays much stronger than her ‘1’ rating point and even trash-talks you while you play against her. While those computer opponents were appreciated, a little silly cat called “Mittens” rated 1 point strong brought millions of new users to the site. On top of that, you can play against an Engine ranging from Level 1 (250 rated) to Level 25 (3200 rated). The weakest bot is rated 250 while the strongest has a whopping 2840. They range from famous streamers to Top Players and chess personalities. Play Against Different Computer Opponents On Ĭ has many different computer bots you can play against. So what is this “Mittens” cat bot and why should you know about it? In an article titled ‘ Chess is Booming! And Our Servers are Struggling’ listed the cute Cat Bot Mittens as one of the reasons for the recent chess boom. In this blog post, we’ll explore the pros and cons of playing chess against a computer, and help you determine if it’s the right choice for you.Īt the end of the article, I will also reveal my favorite chess computer challenge.īefore we jump right into the tips, I want to quickly summarize what happened in January 2023 in terms of the Chess boom. It is only logical that now I get asked many times: “Noël, should I play against chess computers or only against humans?”. Yes, bigger than the boom during the pandemic and after the release of the fabulous chess mini-series on Netflix called The Queens-Gambit. A trash-talking cat bot on is at least partly responsible for the biggest Chess boom ever.

Online chess against the computer