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How did I got a draw against max level AI? Is it bad? Honestly analyze this game if you would.

Last 7 days I have been playing on this site against a computer. ( I was not loged in )

I have not been playing chess for over a year, i think last time I played was on this site also and then I stoped.

If you look at my games I had trouble wining even against stockfish level 4. And I only managed to get one win against level 5 and it was not a good one. ( where there some changes to AI ? Is level 5 easier now or something )

Then a week ago I started playing again and for some reason I have improved. I do not know how since I did nothing chess related in the meantime. Not even those mate puzzles in newspapers.

I tried to play against level 5 again and I managed to win easily. I could see Ai mistakes, I could not see it before.

Today I tried another site and played against a max level AI there. Level 12 is max. I do not know what engine they use.

( I really like this site but I wish it had a "hint option" when playing against a computer )

I actually managed to get a draw so I was curious if someone could analyze that game. I am curious if that AI made some mistakes, and also how I played.

Feel free to critique my game honestly. I am not sensitive about my chess skills. What you would have played differently, why etc. I would appreciate if you could be detailed about it.

I am white ( I did not know how to import that game so I played against my self here on this site )

en.lichess.org/BYx4659O

ps. Great CAPTCHA system.
I'm no expert by any means, but I think I know a few moments that were easy mistakes you could fix.

If you check the engine eval, black holds the edge throughout most of the game until it decides for whatever reason to do a perpetual check and draw.

First moment is probably Bb5+. Black develops and defends, he isn't bothered by your check. Don't simply check for the sake of it. Better move might've been Be2.

Then you push a4 to defend the bishop, this weakens your structure quite a bit here. You should either trade bishops or drop to e2. But black wins in both those scenarios. If you trade the bishop he trades his bad bishop for your not as bad one. And when he recaptures with the queen or knight, he is developing the queen or knight. If you drop to e2, you lose a move.

After a few more moves you have 9. Bxf6. There is no reason to make this move at all. You simply are letting black get his queen out. Notice now that black is almost fully developed and you have basically assisted him throughout the way. In general, if you have a pin, don't capture it, put pressure on the pinned piece or hold the pin until the queen moves. The purpose of pinning the knight on f6 is to inconvenience black, when you take, you relieve the pressure on him. As black I would be happy if you did that. A better move would've been developing your knight or simply castling. Just a developing move in general.

Next mistake is probably 12. c4. After a couple exchanges you have an isolated a pawn and an isolated c pawn. These are targets that black can use to exploit. Especially on that open c files where those rooks will be sure to aim down. You'd spend an unbelievable amount of energy defending that pawn.

You used 17. g3 as a flight square move, it wasn't a bad idea. It's good to have a square like that and of the squares available I think it was better than h3. But then you blew yourself up with 19. f3. This totally destroys your own pawn structure. At this point black will proceed to trade his bishop for your entire kingside pawn structure, which may I add is the defense of your king. Which is what would've happened if black proceeded.

All in all, black resigned in a winning position. Your game obviously has some good points but my two suggestions are to not be so quick to capture pieces and not be so quick to move pawns. Moving pawns is a serious business.

Thanks for sharing, hope this helped some!
Hay, thanks for posting. It is useful.

Could you tell me at the end why is black in a winning position? If he did not go for the 3 move draw could white take over?

If both sides played it perfectly from the Qxg3 would white be at an advantage because of extra Knight?

Update: I set the game starting from Qxg3 and played a computer vs computer (not sure what engine) and white could not find a way to win.

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Also was level 5 AI on this site stronger before?
White has an extra knight yeah, but black will soon pick up a couple more pawns. If you use the stockfish engine here on lichess, it shows that Black could proceed with checking the white king while on the g and h files. If the king attempts to move towards the f file, he walks into a tricky mate in 3. Then after the checks, proceeds to grab the e, f and c pawn for free.

Edit: I apparently suck at showing the board properly on here.

Point is, Black simply has to work his huge pawn majority and with good play he should pick up the win. A strong computer could convert that win, for a human it is pretty tricky though.
en.lichess.org/BYx4659O#40

One possible continuation for black. White loses much more pawns that black bishop was worth, and his exposed King makes him suffer (as a consequence, his excess knight is bound to serve tha purpose of a worse pawn). Black should be able to do something with his two passed pawns (all his 5 pawns are actually passed, but he can use three of them to keep protecting King).
21... Qh4+ 22. Kg2 Qg5+ 23. Kh1 Qh6+ 24. Kg2 Qxe3 24. Nxe4 Nxe4 26. fxe4 Qxe4+ 27.Nf3 Rxc4

And black should go on to make use of his pawn majority and the open king position.

I don't know why the board isn't working but that's the line. Note that the king is stuck in the barrel in the g and h files. If he attempts to find cover in the F file he walks into mate with 23. Kf2 Nd3+ 24. Ke2 Qg2+ 25. Rf2 Qxf2#.
Ok, apparently, I just reposted the very same game, so now I made a different study with the lines given by @Cubra

I made the study private, so tell me if you can't see it @BestSiteEver

en.lichess.org/study/HUIr1UMC

Also, for your other questions, as far as I know, Stockfish has 10 levels of difficulty, so that's likely not him you faced. Still the computer played very well and so did you until f3 (there were some innacuracies as pointed out by Cubra, but nothing lethal).

There are technical reasons (transposition tables) that make the chess engines much more powerfull when they don't take into account move repetition, and I guess the comp did not decided to draw, pretty much the opposite, he liked the position so much (or more exactly the possible X moves continuation) that he did not want to leave it. I believe even good chess engines like stockfish would likely repeat the position twice before going to Qh4+ and possibly making progress.

As for Stockfish level 5 not having the same level as before, I could not say, there is a changelog here http://abrok.eu/stockfish/ that shows that stockfish developpement is still very active. Some update should slightly change his behaviour, for the best at max level, don't know the implication at lower.

But from my personal experience, I usually grow a bit stronger when I come back to a game (chess or else) with a fresh eye, automatism does not take long to come back, but I am usually able to sort between good and bad habits and improve my play, and possibly motivation to make somthing "new" also help being in a good mood. Maybe that's just what happened to you as well.
Study's private - we can't see it :p
It can be changed in the study settings.

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