u/MangooseCharleston

Today's game.

https://lichess.org/x7wb9RC0

Significance, beat Maia9. My personal record for win against the highest rated opponent yet (1731). Also as I announced before, as of yesterday, I have a non-provisional elo (yeah!) and it's actually the highest I've ever had (1680).

But, as any good player will quickly point out, I gave the opponent a pawn, which is a mistake. Then I only reocovered because the opponent blundered a rook for absolutely no reason - yes. And later I didn't see M1. I don't know why the AI will now say I didn't give an analysis of the game when I post this, i think it is a pretty clear analysis of the main issues. Anyway missing Mate in one is is a very consistent theme in my games.

I will take any advice on how to play the position and/or how to start seeing mate in 1. I think one idea I will try is going to play very low rated bots that give up various positions in every game and just practicing spotting a mate in 1. What else?

I don't know about puzzles because I will see it if in a puzzle, the issue appears to be not looking for it in the game.

New lichess account, created exactly 1 month ago today on April 11, 2026.

It took 30 rated games, of which only 26 counted. Some did not count for. unknown reasons. I get it on repeated playing of the same player probably caused one not to count, but the other 3 were on a unique player, so it was weird when they got tossed.

https://lichess.org/@/MangooseCharlestonYT

As you can see I entirely played rated bots. Humaia, Maia1, Maia5, Demolito_L1, Demolito_L2 were common choices.

I know some of you aren't fans of bot play - but this is intentional as I will ultimately train on bots then switch to human play and then make a video on the results of bot training. I also created the account for this reddit forum, so I would have an elo, maybe someday for a flair? Not sure how that works, and also so I could share my games. I also almost exclusively played white.

Another secondary goal was to obtain the non-provisional, I wanted to land above 1500, which turned out to not be an issue, as I currently have 1662.

I will say Maia5 can be OK competition, and Maia9, for me is hard enough. But the final game to remove the "provisional" Maia5 totally fell apart, blundered a queen, gave up a knight, and then allowed an early checkmate. I guess in its pursuit of simulating a human it simulated "tilted" or "drunk".

Next month, I will choose "random", I only or mostly only played white this month because I was pursuing a goal, and this choice is made available on lichess. But in the long run that won't do, of course.

Ultimately say in another month I will create an account on chesscom and play humans for elo - and come up with an elo there.

This is not, of course to say, stop playing humans and start playing bots - that'd be silly. But its for the people that aren't comfortable playing for elo against humans each day, and who are often told - I believe incorrectly, that bot play doesn't improve their game. I aim to do a little report on where I landed after playing 7000 bot games this past year.

I hope it will be interesting. Of course my elo isn' that high but you know, whatever the result is the result.

This is a rant post.

https://lichess.org/n5UBxwkI Can you post links of games like this? I think it is easier to understand than the GIF posts. This is a game of me playing maia-1 bot.

Anyway, I play this opening all the time, so there is nothing brilliant about the queen sacrifice line I've seen it 1000 times. I just play the moves back like a parrot.

After the standard moves, I thought I'm playing solid, until after the game I look at the review, and I missed all kinds of tactical ideas.

I actually congratulated myself for seeing a rook fork, except, get this - you can JUST TAKE THE ROOK. Why did my low elo brain see a fork instead of piece capture.

I thought I had a good forced end to the game too - except on review, it wasn't forced at all and the bot just blundered, it could've survived easily.

I have a low elo view of chess. I just try to get ahead and then not blunder.

A better player would get ahead, and then after that get more ahead, and then after that really put the squeeze on the opponent until they lose all hope.