chess vs real humans

After only playing bots for months, I finally started playing against other live humans. It's wild, this week alone I've played against accounts from India, Honduras, Brazil, France, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Morocco. 

This violates my rule of avoiding online multiplayer games. I started the rule because I would get upset playing ps4 games online and realized it was counterproductive to my goal of having fun playing games. But so far, I've been able to enjoy the online chess. A big part is that if I lose a game, I know that my next opponent will be easier. 

I've learned that a human rated 700 is much tougher than a 700-rated bot. My account started at 400 and after 12 wins, 4 losses, and one draw, I'm currently rated 787. In case you're curious, the best player in the world is rated 2864. 

I've had some comeback wins, a draw that I salvaged from a losing position, some games where I was outmatched and some hard-fought struggles. 

I'll run through two recent wins I'm proud of. 

First up, I'm using the white pieces and it's my move. 

I move bishop to g4. I have a plan.

He takes the bait with his bishop.

I recapture with my queen. It looks like a blunder because there's a knight on e5. But he can't take my queen. My rook on e1 is pinning the knight to the e file.

He then moved his rook to a space that once again looks like it's protected by the knight on e5. But this is a blunder.

I take with the queen knowing he can't move his knight and he resigns down 13 points of material.

New game.

This time I'm using the black pieces and it's my turn to move. 

Using post-game analysis tools that don't appear during the game, the computer recommends the three best moves for me. Although I'm down a pawn (1 point of material) there are two moves which give me a decent advantage. And one move that gives me a full 9-point advantage. 

I find it. Knight to f4.

I'm not merely threatening his queen. Here are the computer's top three moves for white:

The first loses the queen but in a place where the bishop can take my knight. The second abandons the queen entirely to take a bishop.

My opponent being a human player who doesn't want to lose his queen, seemingly finds a space where his queen is safe. But at what cost?

I take the bishop on c4 with check.

He blocks with a feeble pawn to d3 and I take it as well, again with check.

King to g1 is forced.

At this point, I'm thinking I'm doing pretty well. I turned a one pawn deficit to up 3 points of material. I look at the board above and seven seconds later, I make a move.

Queen up the middle to e1. It's not even protected by anything. Just a deep bomb to the middle end zone and it's checkmate. 

Those last four moves starting with the knight to f4, the two bishop moves and the queen checkmate...those were all the top engine moves. Meaning from his perspective, there was no difference between playing me for those four moves and playing the top player in the world or the top computer engine. Checkmate on the 13th move. But hey he never lost his queen. 

What's worth more than a queen? The king.