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This is the third episode in a five part series playing, and hopefully defeating the all new cat meme chess bots unleashed by chess.com in 2023!

Mr Grumpers is a reluctant cat chess bot, preferring to sleep in chess piece boxes. Nonetheless, he has a ELO of 1200. Indeed, Mr Grumpers played a competent opening of the excellent Sicilian Defense, even against the Smith-Morra Gambit, which can take some Sicilian off guard.

On move 10, I blundered my knight [-4.3], after having a lapse in board vision. For some reason, I didn’t “see” that it was defended twice.

On move 15, Mr. Grumpers castles short, and I saw a tactical possibility. Most of Mr Grumpers’ pieces were relatively stuck on the queen-side, whereas I could immediately marshall a knight and queen, and with (15. Bd3), a third attacker.

And it worked! Against my knight attack, Mr Grumpers counterattacked my knight with their h-pawn (16. Ng5 h6), but didn’t realise the threat posed by my next queen move (17. Qh5). The queen actually “pins” the h-pawn to the undefended h7 square – a “checkmate” square between the light square bishop and queen. After Mr Grumpers captures my knight, they hang checkmate. GG!

Poor Mr Grumpers was very upset with the loss!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/computer/29960491

[Event "vs Computer"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2023.01.04"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "MrGrumpersBot"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "B21"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Sicilian-Defense-Smith-Morra-Gambit-Accepted-4.Nxc3-Nc6"]
[UTCDate "2023.01.04"]
[UTCTime "23:33:46"]
[WhiteElo "1381"]
[BlackElo "1200"]
[TimeControl "1/0"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "23:33:46"]
[EndDate "2023.01.05"]
[EndTime "00:15:16"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/computer/29960491"]

1. e4 c5 2. d4 {Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit} 2... cxd4 3. c3 dxc3
{Gambit accepted} 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Bc4 d6 $6 {A relative inaccuracy [0.00]} 6. Nf3
e6 7. O-O Bd7 $2 {Stockfish considers this a mistake [+1]} 8. Bg5 $2 {A mistake
[-0.6] as the attack is too easily avoided at this stage} 8... Qc7 $6 {However,
Mr Grumpers makes an inaccurate move [+0.3] when their queen is threatened} 9.
Nb5 $6 {This attack is premature [-0.6]} 9... Qb8 10. Nxd6+ $4 {I blunder the
knight [-4.3] - a lapse in board vision meant that I didn't see that this was
defended by not only the queen, but also the bishop} 10... Bxd6 11. e5 $6 {This
lashing out just loses a pawn [-6.5]} 11... Be7 $2 {However, Mr Grumpers retreats
their bishop, given up some of their advantage [-4]} 12. Bxe7 $6 {Suboptimal move
[-5.25]} 12... Ngxe7 13. Re1 Qc8 14. Rc1 {Potentially pinning Mr Grumpers'
knight to their queen} 14... O-O 15. Bd3 {With Mr Grumpers castling king-side, I
have a potential attack with bishop, knight and queen, while Black's pieces are
on the wrong side of the board} 15... a6 16. Ng5 h6 17. Qh5 {The pawn on h6 is
\"pinned\" to the h7 \"checkmate\" square} 17... hxg5 $4 {Mr Grumper's focus on
capturing the knight with their pawn resulted in them the checkmate threat from
the bishop and queen} 18. Qh7# 1-0