How to beat Maria

Maria is a intermediate Chess.com bot listed at 1200. See how its games develop, what usually goes wrong and how to review yours.

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How Maria plays

Maria plays close to her listed strength and likes to sacrifice. That combination is what makes her awkward: some of the sacrifices are real and some are not, and accepting the wrong one loses on the spot. Reviews of losses to Maria very often flag the capture itself as the mistake.

The plan

When she gives something up, count the material and look at what her pieces do next before taking. If you cannot see her follow-up, decline and develop instead. The review will tell you afterwards which of her sacrifices were sound.

Review the game you just lost

Bot games on Chess.com have their own address once they are finished: chess.com/game/computer/…. Type rv in front of it, rvchess.com/game/computer/…, and the full review builds itself: accuracy for both sides, every move labelled, and a graph you can click to jump to the moment the game turned. It is free, needs no account, and does not count against Chess.com's daily Game Review.

If you cannot find the address, paste the game's PGN instead. A free Chess.com account caps Game Review at one a day, and bot games count against it. Here every saved bot game can be reviewed in full, as many as you play.

Which move to look at

Against a intermediate bot the useful move is rarely the last one. Open the review, find the first place the graph tips against you, and ask what Maria was threatening there. That is the pattern to fix; the final blunder is just where it showed up.

Bot strengths are as Chess.com listed them at the time of writing; the site re-rates and adds bots. This site is not affiliated with Chess.com.

Review your game against Maria