I Just Lost To A Cat In Chess 

oh Mittens, you little menace

I saw mittens rating and went, 'Oh, finally an opponent I can beat!' and then got whipped by a mate in 16 moves

so happy to see this, I was so mad when I beat all the bots, moved on to Mittens and lost five times in a row

Mittens is probably Martin's cat

"Man put low expectation on a 1 Elo Mitten, live to regrets it"

Really thought Mittens was an easy opponent, I cried.

I heard mittens beat stockfish 15 (3200) so mittens is really ridiculously strong. I really like all the other cat bots, they're cute and fun bots to play against for a lot of people that aren't super high rated.

probably stockfish level 15 disguised

My theory is mittens really is 1-rated and exclusively plays random moves, but she’s very, very lucky

I like how he tries to explain why en passant is the optimal move En passant speaks for itself

Even putting aside mittens the other cats seem underrated as well.

Its funny how mittens is 1 rated but he can beat litereally everyone

Makes me feel better. I lost to Mittens playing the Vienna-my strongest opening.

I was skeptical when i saw the 1 rating I was anxious when the highest level bot was 1400 I got scared when the bot started saying they've played against me before I got mated in 16 moves.

My guess it's that it's an adaptive bot with a really wide range.

I was like "hahaha an elo 1 bot I wonder how this cat blunders" 3 minutes later Me: resigns with the bot 17+ more material than me

I’m actually watching this right after I raged against mitten

I really like the video and hoping to see more gameplay from you. It's very interesting for me because you explain every move and what you're thinking. Keep up the good work 👍

31:26 I think there was a way to save the bishop if we move the pawn to c4, that would deliver a check to the king and also it would have created an escape route for our bishop (the problem is that by doing so we are losing a pawn which is a disadvantage and maybe it will lead to a bad position... but still the bishop would be saved)

I looked at the position at 9:25 in stockfish and found something interesting. The engine considers c3 to be an inaccuracy and Bd2 as the best move. If bxc2 is played the best follow up is not to take back, but to play Qc1 which is a crazy looking move. The idea being to allow the pawn to take your knight to activate your rook and when the queen moves to c7 you can take the bishop and have a substantial lead in development.

His true rating is 3267, someone revealed that when doing stockfish vs mittens

The moves with your bishop and knight when checking his king I would never have thought of, pretty cool play

Yep, Mittens is an ice cold assassin. Checkmated me on the back rank before I was even half developed. Beats getting smoked by Mrs. Clause at least!

mittens probably ate stockfish and gained its powers

28:20 Opposite bishops is much harder to draw if you still have other pieces on the board. Opposite bishops is only drawish when it's just the opposite bishops.

27:23--after Bxa2, it felt like Rb5 was the move, because it takes away almost all the squares the bishop could use to move again, other than f7, and stops it from coming back to attack your g2 pawn. Putting the rook on a1 led it to it basically being stuck once black's pawns advanced.

That's max level engine. I used hints and all the games were drawn

I did exactly the same as you, except that I blundered playing too quickly and hung a rook against the 1200 cat so that one took me two attempts.

I played Mittens yesterday and got wrecked. It played with 98% accuracy and all I could do was try to drag the game out while slowly losing.

31:20 Why you didn't gave the check on c4? Either King, Bishop or b5 Pawn would have to take it, but you would let your bishop alive and maybe still manage to win the game (that part would be on you, I am just 900 rate xD), but anyways it's always amazing to watch your videos. I really like that you explain why did some move was either good or bad and suggest some better move and explaining why that would affect your game in the future. Thank you so much for spending precious tome making those videos for all of us!

I played against Mitten, first thought "wow, it knows theory, lower rated Bots don't, that's strange" Then I got destroyed Later I played the lowest mode (with Stockfish) and it was a draw

From everything I’ve seen, Mittens is a modified top engine bot with adaptive play. It’ll change its play depending on how you play. Play worse, it plays worse. Stockfish 15 demolishes Mittens though. Probably because Mittens is designed to play with its food and is a literal troll. It has many times set up for moves and traps and not taken the pieces because it can do other things in the meanwhile. Designed to impress and destroy humans (unless you’re Hikaru), and did exactly that

Very simple solution to mittens, setup a Lovely mate in one board and just wash all your problems away

Coincidentially, I tried the Mittens bot a couple minutes before you uploaded this. I saw the new cat bots and the one that intruiged me the most was obviously Mittens, thanks to the '1' rating. I thought I would win the Scholar's Mate, but boy I got smashed. I think Mittens is like this meme cat that just started playing chess because it likes the game but uses a top engine. Still, I think Beads was a better name.

Mittens is definitely doing some anal-bead-level cheating, but that actually makes him very easy to beat. If you go to "Custom" at the bottom when selecting difficulty and change the timer to 1 minute, Mittens takes about 4 seconds to make every move and will run out of time after around 15-20 turns. I'm a 1200, and just by playing stalling moves and making sure to not make any major blunders, I managed to win against Mittens through a closed Guicco Piano position.

4:09 "Scaredy cat tried their best." Dunno why but that line made me laughed so hard...

0:16 Scarey cat 4:14 angry cat 8:17 Mr. grumpers 15:14 Catspurrov 22:41 mittens :3

31:24 play pawn c4 check then bishop a5 saves your bishop

Have never seen nelson focusing so much can tell just by how he’s talking

MIttens is actually a flerken. Have you analysed the game to see how Mittens moves compare to what Stockfish suggests?

I went through a game (with engine reviewing). Mittens consistently plays 2nd best engine move, and occasionally lower moves for minor mistakes. But you have to be a computer to take advantage of those mistakes. Maybe a GM might see them, but they usually not exploitable directly.

Mitton's rating is one, possibly meaning #1 where Mittons is stronger than all the grandmasters combined

- Bro, I'll be away for the weekend, can you check the cat for me? + Weird request but ok *moves rook to e5 *

Right before you resigned, I think you could have played c4+, creating an escape square on c3. But I'm only 700, I probably am wrong.

Maybe mittens is one of those self-adjusting bots. I'm only 1550 and ignoring the ones I lose immediately in the opening from trying new things that didn't work, it usually gets down to an even end game before I get outplayed and lose there, like 4 pawn and 2 rook or 4 pawn / rook / bishop. Would think I could never get that close if it just plays at master level straight up.

I already suspected that something was wrong when I saw mittens rating I analysed the game and I made 3 inaccuracies and still lost!

I saw some people saying that even stockfish 15 had trouble against mittens lol deffinately not afraid to show those danger mittens 🐾☠️

Mr. Grumpers meows for himself.

Mittens is a computer chess hustler. Got us all.

The best I came up with was a draw. I used the help function in every move, so i think Mittens is just Stockfish

In the resigning position you had pawn check and you save the bishop at the cost of some material and m a y b e you can play for a draw

Man, I got my first loss in 2023 because of mittens 😭 I thought he's a easy opponent but damn, that little cute bastard just crushed me in 20 moves!

Never move the f pawn”😂

I'm glad I'm not the only one getting my ass beaten by a cat. When I tell ya I've never been this angry at a cat before ...

Actually you can beat him, you have to use Stockfish, but that's not enough. You have to play something with the stable advantage form the beginning. The best is Ruy Lopez. This bot hates it.

You have to set the timer (1+0 preferably) to bullet to beat mittens, it thinks for way too long... That's how you get your revenge

Saw mittens and lost… I was so mad and was waiting for a vid

Interesting Mr Grumpers played Qa5 against the Sicilian wing gambit. I’ve had the bots play that against me in my slow campaign against them. I’ve recently had Oscar and the Alex Botez bots play it but I didn’t think to see a 1200 bot play it too. It definitely seems to be tricky to have bots emulate human play styles at any rating. They have a different feel.

I fear no man, but that thing *meow*, it scares me.

Mittens is just a young cat that can beat literally anyone Edit: I BEAT MITTENS!!

only way to save the bishop there is losing a pawn. you can play "c4+". if "Bxc4", you can play "Bb4". if "Kxc4", you can play "Ba5". but i don't think saving the bishop does too much. because this two squares are not good for bishop at this endgame.

You just know that (1) rating is an integer overflow.

They better start working on a Nelson (Lopez) bot!

So after observing mittens for a bit, it seems to love picking a specific piece and trying really hard to make it obsolete, once it sees an obsolete piece, it straight up forgoes taking it just to develop its board better, it also massively prioritizes denying a large amount of spaces over taking pieces, it also seems to like forcing the player to move their king upwards and nailing them on row 4 or 3. Overall...I’d love to see Magnus face it and maybe break down it’s strategy better.

Idk if im wrong, but you cold of moved the pawn from c3 to c4 to make a check and thene the bishup cold move to a safe square like a5. Also sorry for bad spelling xd

I feel like mittens is Hikaru's cat

See games against stock fish 15 against mittens it is super crazy.

Idk in Mittens round you can go c4 open a way for bishop and check the king

Well, there’s one foolproof trick to beat mittens every time! Turn on the “custom game” setting, and start your game. Now, there is a strategy to follow for every move. You click the light-bulb button, and follow the move it tells you. Do that every move to secure a simple victory against mittens. After the third time you’ll get a warning about how you’ll get less crowns for winning. Ignore it.

31:17 c 4 check so the bishop can run

I always go from low rated bot to high rated bot. Went for Mittens first, got trashed spectacularly

This is my new favorite chess channel!

Catspurrov purrs for himself.

I love how they used the image of that one cat standing

Mittens is a cat, it plays with mice before killing it. We are mice. It stuck me in the depth of my side creating a big zwigzang, then started to eat me alive.

This cat crushes me in every opening I play. Dude. I've learnt that 1»1300.

I thought the same like "oh, 1 elo, cool!" I saw this cat was thinking 5 seconds at his first move and then I said "yeah... veeeery funny......"

The cats meow for themselves.

On angry cat you could have moved rook d1 and queen d8 for checkmate

After testing with Stockfish 14 NUEE offline, Mittens is definitely just Stockfish. It obviously doesn't make the best moves all the time because of the low depth it's ran at. Mittens actually has some funny dialog if you get to move 41 and beat it.

In addition to figuring out its rating I think the community should also try to figure out if the cat bots have some sort of "gimmick" and not just being another chess engine bot. What clued me in I am seeing people disputing Mitten's rating with some saying as high as 4K while others are saying it seems easier against a human player and playing closer to 3K or even lower. So my first guess is that it knows how to play against the website's own engines which can be used to obfuscate it actual ranking and prolong the "newness" of the bots so that you don't just see that it is stockfish rebranded. E: Another idea I am seeing floating around is that it acts as a +X elo rating compared to the account it is playing against which would help explain why it might struggle against regular bots when viewing it but able to crush the top level engine it has.

13:01 he would have lost his queen but the pawn disappeared into thin air

c4 would have released the bishop, but sacrifice two pawns, so still probably a lost game.

I dont get how people underestimated mittens, those first dialogues are a dead giveaway

i put him versus a 3900 stockfish and he won

Nelsi you had a pawn sacrifice on c 3 which make a space for the bishop

they should’ve named one of the cats catastrophe

I had stock fish play Mittens and they drew by repetition of moves I’m not kidding

You could try to move the pawn to c4 for a check and then it would have saved your bishop?

In Gothams video shows that stock fish is better. He demostrated it with 2 games

31:08 Doesnt c4 save the bishop? its check and the bishop can move to the other squares

Man this is my fav chess player of all time

Ngl I was hoping the cat bots would move multiple pieces at once (due to not understanding the game and not being able to hold the pieces the same way humans would on a physical board).

I saw mittens and felt bad for it so I threw the first game just so it has some fun too. I played 3 more games with it and lost all my feelings...

You should have moved your pawn a d check king and got your bishop free from rook of mittens

Mittens meows for itself.

I played mittens against stock fish, and he isn’t perfect, but he is damn near it

26:25 wouldn't bishop b5 be a better move? I'm just a begginer but that looked like a good move

the Elo rating of mittens has encountered the integer limit

Ben Finegold has a video where he beat mittens, and it was a pretty good game