I joined my girlfriend to a chess tournament of the local club once. Old vs. young. They were an adult short, and I know the rules, so I volunteered to play - otherwise there would be a kid without an opponent every round (my plan had been to write some code in a corner, but entertaining the kids, why not right?).

I lost every game. The kids were something like 10 years old. Admittedly, I know little more than the rules, but I expected to at least give one or two of them trouble by playing logical. Not so...

They had the best time, seeing in how many moves they could beat me. In my last game I tried an unusual (okay, stupid) opening hoping to at least break any pattern they have, but that just made me lose even faster. Be weary of 12-year-olds if they're playing in a chess club!

Sergei Karjakin became grossmeister at age 12

What op probably meant was that the engine knows no theory, but can See when something can be taken and can think a few steps ahead.

Not sure if I agree completly, but since you can win in under 10 moves simply focusing on an attack in the king I know what he means (wasn't quite a fools mate, but couldn't protect the Kings side)

I think that a 12 year old would play Mord reckless and would make more obvious mistakes. I think this is at the level oft a self taught novice that only played against another self taught novice (funny enough I was thinking of when I player chess against my friends when I was 12...) good times

I'm getting a kick out of this thread because, having hardly played chess since age 12, this game instantly reminded me of games in the middle school library.

It seems like there's broad agreement on skill level.

Yeah, just tried a fool's mate! It didn't /quite/ work, but pressing on still led to a very early mate, after dealing with an inconvenient pawn. (I think about 15 moves total?)

I settled for the second trick newcomers learn -- forking the Queen and the Rook with the Knight. Easy win being up a Rook and Pawn to a Knight, with the black's King uncastled and in the open.

I expected it to play like Ed's Chess on DOS, which I always had trouble beating. IIRC that engine looks 3-4 moves ahead usually, but 6-7 moves ahead when it needs to. No idea how big the equivalent JS would be.

Looking ahead more moves requires zero more code -- depth is a loop variable.

Well the deeper you look, the more clever you need to be about pruning your branches and exploring the search space, so I would guess it does require more code.

Was extremely good at 12. But my dad who thought himself good stopped playing after I won a game by taking everything and losing none. I recall seeking so many possibilities, now I stink at it.