4000 ELO BOT CRUSHED STOCKFISH

[00:00:00]Ladies and gentlemen, in the world of chess, we have been governed and subjected to the rule of stockfish for many years.

[00:00:12]While the entire world is having its frenzy over artificial intelligence in chess, it has been three decades of humans having to accept that the computer probably knows best. at least on our 8 by8 board. Stockfish dominates all other chess engines and all other neural networks. But every now and then a new one pops up, and that's what I'm going to be showing you in today's video.

[00:00:42]There's a chess engine coded on something called Rust, which will mean something to some of you and nothing to most of you, including myself.

[00:00:52]Apparently, this engine named Reckless is reckless. It has a very aggressive playing style. It thinks a little bit differently. It's still weaker than Stockfish, but it's causing a little bit of a concern. It's like the new young upstart, you know, prodigy in the world of chess engines, if you will. In this video, I'm going to show you three games that they played against each other. The way that these chess championships work is they take the best computers in a knockout system and then they make them play the same opening against each other with white and with black. That's called a pair. And then if one of them wins, they win that pair. Uh I say this at the beginning of every engine video that I make because some of you don't know this. Like how you know how do two computers play against each other? Uh well like this, right? And and if computers were to choose, they would just play the same openings all the time because there would be a meta. A lot of computers play to lose. Geez, play not to lose. Reckless plays to win and to destroy. If you are a chess developer, uh you can, you know, write in the comments. I'm not going to get all the technical details correct and I'm not going to pretend to understand them. In this game, Stockfish played a King's Gambit. Basically, this is an old school king's gambit. It's kind of the Vienna gambit, but really, black never went knight f6. And this is bad, but it's only really bad if you're a computer.

[00:02:25]Reckless takes the pawn. And now, white plays d4 completely and totally allowing queen h4 check. Normally, you don't want to allow that because if you can't block it, you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. Historically, queen H4 followed by king E2 has been very dangerous.

[00:02:45]But honestly, on a human level, it's dangerous for both sides because with black, you play this move, but if you don't know the follow-ups, white goes here, white wins the back, the center pawn, white immediately starts attacking, and you kind of have a queen out, your king's in the middle. But these are computers. So B6 is the move chosen uh from the black side. Bishop A6 is now always going to be an idea. Also, black is going to get closer to castling.

[00:03:15]Stockfish plays knight B5 attacking the pawn on C7, walking into this pin, but clearly going to defend yourself with a pawn. So bishop A6 A4 and now long castle. Now, for Reckless to voluntarily castle as fast as possible, it's very important because then the rest of the battle is going to happen over here. Now, again, these computers are rated so high. They understand chess timing so well, like what exact thing has to be moved at what exact moment. They don't have emotions like, "Oh, my king is a little bit weak. Oh, my queen is a little bit on the wrong square." Right?

[00:03:52]They think of of of moves completely differently, and we're going to be looking at that.

[00:03:58]So, white plays knight f3.

[00:04:00]Reckless doesn't keep the queen here, but plays queen e7, attacking the pawn.

[00:04:05]It's it's it's going to continue to attack. Stockfish gives this away completely.

[00:04:13]A pawn near the king, but actually taking it is too dangerous because knight to c3 would attack the queen and attack the bishop. Shockingly, that's not going to happen. The bishop comes back to B7. And in many ways, this bishop isn't just a defender of the king. What Reckless envisions is an opening of the center of the board. And this bishop will participate in the long run in the attack on the white king. So Stockfish here plays A5. It senses that if it does nothing, black is going to have a lot of time to consolidate the pawn and also launch an attack. So Stockfish knows it needs to act now. A5.

[00:04:50]Very nice move. Now, if you take this with the knight, you would give away a pawn, but also you would just really activate the rook for white, right? If you took this with the pawn, you would ruin your pawn structure, and then white would be able to play D5 and so on, which is why Reckless just goes G5, A5, G5. This is why I love this game. This is an amazing game. This this is alien level chess. Uh this is, you know, if Victor Webyama is the alien of basketball, this is like watching 9 foot tall players play. All right. G5.

[00:05:23]A6. Honestly, the game could almost be decided with the move A6. A6 is such a pivotal move in computer chess because the engine basically is saying, and by the engine I mean white. And by the way, this computer that you're seeing on your screen, it's weaker than both of the other computers.

[00:05:45]So this Stockfish on the browser is doing its best to keep up with the other evaluations.

[00:05:50]Um, this is very pivotal because if this pawn doesn't make it through, white's position is completely stranded.

[00:05:58]However, there is a world in which the king is not able to escape off the back rank. So, of course, you could have opened and brought the rook in, but instead we have this position. Bishop D3. Reckless plays king B8, a preparatory move, defending everything and wanting to move the knight. Rook E1.

[00:06:15]So, Stockfish is consolidating the center of the board. And at some point the attack is going to start. D6. We keep making some moves. D5 attacks the knight. Knight E5. For now the bishop has been kind of blocked. It's impossible to activate it. But Reckless is going to play moves like C6. F5. H5.

[00:06:32]G4. It's just going to go attack Stockfish's king. Stockfish retreats.

[00:06:36]Knight H6 is played. Bring bringing another knight. You want to play knight G4. The king goes back. And it's it's kind of as if white has castled here.

[00:06:45]Rook G8. Every move is like thunder, you know, like when you hear the thunder, you're like, "Oh, there's going to be rain." Knight H6, rook G8, and now C5.

[00:06:59]And this is a problem. This is a problem because you can take it on pant, but you would be loosening this diagonal. And if you don't take it on pant, I'm going to go C4. Push you back. Still that might be the best idea. But Stockish plays D takes C6. Reckless doesn't even take it.

[00:07:13]It plays bishop G7.

[00:07:16]You're just trying to remove the grasp of the center. And then if these pieces get active, this attack will be vicious.

[00:07:23]Black has a pawn majority on this side of the board and black is pointing at the king. This is vintage opposite side castling except on an astronomically higher level. And if H5, G4, F3 come in, it's going to be game over. C3. Knight takes C6. Pressure is on the center. And now we've opened up this diagonal again.

[00:07:41]We have G4 as well. Rook A4.

[00:07:46]Just what? Like rook A4. Okay, that I don't know what that does. It goes back reckless. Stockfish brings the bishop back to B1. Could the idea be to play bishop A2 or activate the queen? I I don't know. Maybe you just don't want the bishop taken. Bishop Bishop F6 makes some more sense I guess because you want to go G4 maybe B3 bishop B1 followed by B3. What are these moves? How do I explain them to people? Knight takes F3.

[00:08:21]Queen takes. And now a very important move. Bishop E5. And the point of this is that the center is now locked.

[00:08:29]Everything is locked here.

[00:08:32]Which means the attack is coming again.

[00:08:35]If black gets all of those pawn moves, the entire white king side is going to collapse. The queen goes back to D1, the rook goes to G6. I I cannot explain these moves to you. I don't know what I I cannot maybe like you would think rook to G8. The idea is actually to reroute the knight to F6. So the rook went to G6. You bring the knight this way because it's better to target the center like this.

[00:09:02]Stockfish plays knight F5. The queen slides out of the way. And there we go.

[00:09:07]We now have the perfect configuration.

[00:09:10]Every single pawn is protected. I told you that threeon two. The threeon two majority attacking the side of the board. G4. If take take the queen is hanging. So Stockfish needs to come up with another idea. Knight D7 from Reckless trying to protect the white pawn invasion. And there it is. Pawn to F3. Absolute perfect coordination of the attack. Now, you would think as a human you play G3 here and the attack is over.

[00:09:36]To be honest with you, I don't even know why that's not the move. I think Stockfish doesn't like having a protected pawn so far in its territory.

[00:09:41]And after something like this with knight E5 coming, it probably just figures that it's going to lose. So, it wants to keep the position a little more open. Here comes rook D1. Now, Reckless plays queen takes, bishop takes, knight E5. Anyway, white plays rook F2, takes, king takes, and rook G8. Rook DG8. I apologize. How are we going to break through here though? Like where is the attack? Well, the attack just continues just absolutely flying down that side of the board and now the cherry on top. How do you break through the white position here to get to this king?

[00:10:17]Well, you obviously play B5 on the other side of the board because if white goes C5, you take and the rook goes there and always can come in over here. But also if something like B takes C5 happens, you have knight C4. The rook is hanging.

[00:10:37]The bishop targets the pawn. If the rook goes back to F1, rook A6, rook A3, Queen C5, Bishop E4, G3, H3, everything is falling apart in the position. B5 opens up the possibility to bring the rook to the other side of the board. Now Stockfish retreats to E3. Pawn takes C4 is winning a pawn. B5. It's still looking for some counterplay. And the conclusion to this game is absolutely gorgeous. Reckless plays amazingly. G3. Then it goes knight to D3. It's breaking apart the position here. You can't even take this pawn because rook here would attack this. And you can't do this because this would be a fork. And if this I have G2 check and then I go rook G4 and I take this or rook F4. So the game ends like this.

[00:11:24]Check this out. C4. King G2. C3. Check Check this out. Check. Bishop takes F5.

[00:11:32]King. You can't even take the bishop.

[00:11:34]It's completely hopeless.

[00:11:36]And there is a moment here of drama.

[00:11:40]Rook C4 sacrifices the rook and goes to promote and Stockfish goes rook H1 threatening rook H8 mate because the king can't move anywhere.

[00:11:58]But Reckless just makes the queen. And this is not mate because the only defensive move that you have, bishop to C8, is actually a check on white. White is a move away from checkmating black, but can't do it because they have to go here first. King goes here. Queen promotes to another another queen promotes with a check. Check. Check. It doesn't even take the rook. Queen F2.

[00:12:27]Rook G6. Latter mate.

[00:12:31]And that was just game one. That was just game one. I got three of these games. Um the second game is epic. The third game is on another planet. I really all the I mean all these games between these computers are amazing.

[00:12:48]Like I could obviously show you Stockfish is still stronger, but it is still cool to see Stockfish lose cuz we got to root for the underdog. That's that's that's the reality. Um, check out this game with white. It's very rare for them to win with black. It almost never happens. Okay. Uh, E4 C5. All right. We have a Sicilian defense scavven variation. And now G4.

[00:13:18]This kind of went out of fashion like black has started playing this or this or this. This is a little bit too passive. The bishop gets blocked too early. And G4 is a very good move. Now G5 H4.

[00:13:33]Bishop E3.

[00:13:35]I really like this game because it shows hilarious piece coordination and then at some point Reckless just goes on a pony ride. And this game I'm really excited to show you. Um because uh it very similar to this game um very just very creative. Very very creative. Uh so here we go. A6. Queen E2. White wants to castle long. Play here. F4. Bring the rooks. Checkmate.

[00:14:09]Space advantage. Pawn attack. We've seen this a lot in my videos of AI versus AI.

[00:14:14]Uh the the the Sicilian type of positions lead to some really really crazy stuff. So short castle, knight takes, B takes, and long castle. All right, so we we we know where this is going. King is here. King is here. These pawns are going to go this way. These pawns are going to go this way. Not even because they're not they're not doing anything. But rook B8, queen A5, maybe D5. Like black on a human level here has plenty of play. Okay, so D5. Now what does white do here? A very normal move for these positions is king B1. Now, if I'm if I'm playing black here, I'm thinking bishop B4 to take the knight, but apparently the knight could just move.

[00:14:51]And it's kind of stupidly placed, but the next thing you do is kick out the bishop or play B3. And there's not really a way to get checkmated. So, rook B8 is the move played by Stockfish. And now bishop C1. I love that even before these insane attacks happen, these computers play such ridiculous defensive measures like king B1 and just bringing the bishop back. None of us would play this move. None of us. None of us. I mean, most of us would be like, "Oh, there's no danger. I can bring this back if I need to, but why would I do that?"

[00:15:21]A5. Rook a Rook H3.

[00:15:26]Wow. Okay. A4 trying to give away the pawn to open up some lines.

[00:15:32]Reckless is like queen E3 activates the bishop on this diagonal.

[00:15:38]And other than that, I don't know what this move does. Bishop D6. Now H5. I think the idea was maybe to defend this pawn. That was maybe the idea. Go here.

[00:15:47]Here, protect this and enable H5. So now we have two pawns. We're encroaching.

[00:15:52]A3. B3. You're not getting in. Queen B6.

[00:15:55]Looking for a trade of queens. Reckless is like, I don't want a trade of queens.

[00:15:59]Simple. I don't want to trade. I'm defending. I'm going to attack at some point. Queen C7. Queen D2. We have a mutual queen repositioning. Bishop B4.

[00:16:07]Pinning the knight. That looks very annoying. Now, a very important move.

[00:16:10]H6.

[00:16:12]Now, black either has to take, push, or allow to be taken. This is the safest thing that you can do. But, as always, these computers love restricting kings because it's good in the endame, and it's good if you're ever going to attack anybody. F4. There we go. This is very dangerous now for black. The attack is coming. F5 is there ripping open the position. The computer does not care about losing a pawn here. It takes on D5 opens up the rook. But now queen D4 with a checkmate threat. So you have to go back and now black has lost the pawn.

[00:16:47]So black is threatened with this bishop and queen G7 mate.

[00:16:52]The only thing Stockfish can do now is offer a trade of queens because if the queens get traded, at least they won't get checkmated, right?

[00:17:01]Viciously. Reckless is like, well, I'm happy with that because I have an extra pawn.

[00:17:09]But the ease with which it wins this endame, it's so nice. And I really liked it because this horsey transcended. It grew wings and galloped freely across the board. It went E2 C3 back offering a trade. You can't trade here with black. So, the reason this endame is completely lost for black is not because you're down a pawn. It's because you're down a pawn and none of your pieces can stand up to the white pieces. None of them. Uh this is the pawn that you're down and it's an outside pass pawn. So it's a pawn that has nobody theoretically preventing it from walking to the end. If black commits pieces there, all these weaknesses will be unveiled. This pawn structure is horrible for this light squareed bishop. It can't target anything. And now the knight is just going to continue to push back the black knight. King back to C1. Bishop H3. And a very sophisticated little maneuver.

[00:18:11]taking the knight because now the knight for white is going to go on the dark squares.

[00:18:20]Everything is just up for grabs. This bishop is dominated. You never see a bishop get dominated like this. The knight on C5. Beautifully positioned.

[00:18:28]Excellent example of an outpost. How to win a chess next level. Chapter 3 comes out October 2026. Rook there and just smooth like butter. Look at this little pawn move forward. Little improving moves. Knight knight E4 check. Can't be taken. And now the knight goes there.

[00:18:47]H7 is falling.

[00:18:50]Rook A3. H7 will fall. There it is.

[00:18:53]Can't even take it because I'm going to go here.

[00:18:57]Pawn takes. And the knight plays a crucial role in shielding the pawn from the opponent here. Rook takes F8 could have been played, but then there would have been H8. So, bishop F3 was played instead and this is just game over. King C3, queen E5. It starts sacrificing all of its pieces. What's funny is it's almost a stalemate. Like, if rook E1 check is played here, it almost looks like stalemate, but there is king B6. And so ultimately the computers have a little bit of a sense of humor, but just like such a clean game. Now this game, this was I'm going to take a sip of this.

[00:19:48]This was uh Yeah, this was genius. So just like the last game, this was another aggressive Sicilian on the king side like this.

[00:19:59]But in this game, black castled long and white castled short, which is really rare. So, black saw the attack coming. White traded to keep that bishop looking pretty bad. Brought the other knight to D4.

[00:20:19]And I mean, it was quite clear what was happening here, right? Like, you know, if you castle this way, you're going to get destroyed. So, in kind of a funny turn of events, Stockfish brought the king that way, which doesn't happen very often because in the Sicilian when you've done all this, it kind of doesn't make sense to castle in that direction.

[00:20:37]So, immediately without even any hesitation, Reckless went here. And so, normally in the Sicilian, it's black counterattacking on the open lines of the queen side and white checkmating a king over here or in the center. Now everything changes because black can play H6, take, try to activate the position like that. White targets this pawn which prevents any more pawn breaks and these pieces are a little bit ugly right now. But you have an opportunity to jump into the position. Now what is white going to do? White is going to play for a queenside break. White is going to have to use these pawns at some point.

[00:21:12]Otherwise, white has nothing to play for. That's the way chess works. Here comes the knight.

[00:21:19]I like this next move. This shows you engine play. H6.

[00:21:25]The simple idea behind pawn to H6. It's in case it's not clear. Oh, the king. No restriction.

[00:21:33]You lock down this whole side of the board. Now, if you ever get a knight there or a rook here, you're going to win this pawn and win any endgame. So, that's number one. Number two is there is no attack. This king is honestly very safe.

[00:21:51]Here comes knight E4.

[00:21:54]Queen D3.

[00:21:56]King to B8. And now Reckless starts making its little improving moves. Rook C1.

[00:22:04]C3.

[00:22:06]A3. Just slowly building up the position. Ready for the right moment.

[00:22:13]But it loves an attack. Queen goes back.

[00:22:16]Here comes another preparatory move.

[00:22:18]King H2. You don't know. Maybe you need some control of these squares and you don't want the back rank to be weak.

[00:22:24]King H2. Mysterious move. Rook C1. Rook C7. Rook D1. Getting out of the way.

[00:22:30]Maybe looking for something on the D file. The queen gets out of the way. The queen also gets out of the way. The rook slides to D7. The queen slides back to E1. The knight leaves the position. The rook slides over. The rook slides over again. Now look at this. Bishop G1 and Bishop F1.

[00:22:47]What could possibly be brewing here?

[00:22:51]Well, I'll tell you.

[00:22:53]B3. And in a moment, the queen side is going to open up. All the reckless had to do was put every piece on the first rank from where they could have the most mobility, maybe the most choice, the least danger.

[00:23:08]Stockfish at this point is like, well, I think B4 is coming. Like at some moment I'm gonna have to move something. Like if I go here either C4 or B4 A4. So Stockfish decides I'm gonna force reckless to do something.

[00:23:24]Now logically you would think you want to take and that's exactly because you want to open the position. Knight takes A4.

[00:23:35]Immediately we go for the weak B5 pawn.

[00:23:37]This is the final layer of defense for the black position. The pawn on B5.

[00:23:43]Rook B7.

[00:23:45]Rook B3.

[00:23:47]It's quite clear what we're doing. We're defending this. We're defending this.

[00:23:50]And we're preparing Rook to B1. So, black has to go rook CC7.

[00:23:56]Now, the next level of attack, knight C2.

[00:24:02]What?

[00:24:04]Yeah. The idea is to put the bishop there to glue the position shut. and then proceed with the attack on this side of the board. So, king c8, bishop d4, locking the position. Now you go rook a1. What does rook a1 do? Then you play knight b4. Rook a1 prepares knight to b4. And if the bishop ever takes, the pawn takes and the rook is actually participating in the game. Rook a1 putting the rook behind a pawn looks so dumb. But there's actually a really big problem here. You're going to have to take with black. So, queen A8, rook B1, bishop takes AB. So, this is the position. It looks still completely locked.

[00:24:53]How are you going to win? The only pawn break white has is C4. And that's never going to work. That's controlled by four different pieces. In fact, you know how it's never going to work? Stockfish puts the rook there. Stockfish is like, "You can take my rook because then I would open up my queen on this diagonal and you'll never win. I'll play queen F3, bishop B7. I'll walk my king into the middle. It's just equal. It's a completely def It's a complete defensive fortress. Rook D1." Which is why Reckless won't take the rook. It doesn't want the rook. Okay. Queen F2.

[00:25:25]Didn't I just say Reckless doesn't want the rook?

[00:25:30]Apparently, under the right circumstances, it does. Remember how in this moment the queen would get to f3?

[00:25:36]Well, if you make a couple of good defensive moves like this, now there is no queen f3. Now there's no queen f2, queen g2, and there's no queen h1. And since you have all that met, this is possible. But hold on a minute. Still, how do you possibly break this down?

[00:25:53]You don't have a way through.

[00:25:56]Everything is defended.

[00:26:00]Well, how do you break a fortress?

[00:26:03]Bishop C5 with the idea to trap the queen. If knight takes, this is easily winning. You trade rooks, you trade queens, and this is a win. A rook will beat a bishop here. You bring the king, you bring the rook, you infiltrate, you win the game.

[00:26:19]So since rook D4 is a threat, the queen has to come here. And now the queen gets locked out. So the bishop went to C5, threatening to trap the queen and closes the trap door and now the queen is stuck in the white position.

[00:26:34]All it can do is move around to F5 here and maybe just like threaten to go there if you give away the control of the square. But Reckless now is going to try to break down the fortress using the only possible pawn break it has. F5 doesn't do anything, but C4 at the right moment does. So, rook back to A1. Queen to F5.

[00:26:57]Rook D3. They reposition. Reposition.

[00:27:01]Reposition. Bishop C5. King to G3. Okay, now the queen can't come in. We get it.

[00:27:06]Black is trying to avoid all the pawn trades. Rook A1. Rook A8. Rook A2. Rook A6. Okay, there's nothing here, right?

[00:27:13]Queen goes back. Bishop goes back. Rook goes here. Bishop, bishop, queen. I mean, we're just shuffling. But there is a vague idea to do something like this.

[00:27:23]And suddenly the idea appears. It looks like nothing has happened.

[00:27:33]But at this moment, Reckless detonated an explosive and played the move C4.

[00:27:44]Why?

[00:27:46]Well, if you take it with the D pawn, I sacrifice the rook and then I play bishop A7 and you you can't defend.

[00:27:57]You don't have enough time here. I played check here and bishop B8 with mate and mate if takes.

[00:28:09]If you take with the B pawn, if you don't take at all, I take you. I'm not really like you can't do anything here.

[00:28:14]I'm going to take you. And if you take with this, which is what happened in the game, this is really th this is this is alien. If you if you're still here, you had the attention span to watch this video.

[00:28:29]I'm going to reward you. The best move in this position is bishop A7.

[00:28:38]Why? I mean, that could have been played anyway. Well, the idea is rook takes A4 followed by queen to B6. And if you try to stop that, I take the knight for free. So you play queen E4 offering me a trade of queens. I play queen G1, keeping the battery alive and rook takes A4 and queen to B6 is still there. Black now runs with the king trying to get away.

[00:29:07]The winning move for white is pawn to B5.

[00:29:19]Why?

[00:29:21]You threaten rook takes A4 and if bishop takes you have opened this diagonal.

[00:29:31]So now white plays rook to d4 forcing the queen away and queen e1 and nobody can stop the queen from infiltrating.

[00:29:42]The only thing black can do is to play pawn to c3 and lose this knight. Now both rooks see the knight and rook takes a4 appears. And if you take I don't take I go check and I hunt down the king.

[00:29:55]Bishop c6. Queen c5. This queen is completely blocked out of the game.

[00:30:01]But this king is hopeless. Queen here.

[00:30:05]Check. King B7. And rook B4 would win the queen. And this would simply win the game. I would get to everything. Now, one one quick like why did B5 have to be played? Why couldn't we have just gone rook to D4 immediately? Because here this is still the critical idea, you know, like B5.

[00:30:25]But maybe it doesn't have to be taken or something. But B5, maybe rook D4 or B5 straight away would have been kind of interchangeable. But it's all about this B5 concept like B5, queen E1. And now the fortress collapses. And give it a couple of more moves.

[00:30:45]The pawn is stopped. The king walks over. By the way, that pawn fell. This pawn is still going to promote. And Reckless gets the job done against Stockfish.

[00:30:58]H8 mate.

[00:31:00]Ultimately, Reckless lost like every computer. Torch, Reckless, Leela.

[00:31:07]But I'm rooting for there to be a computer challenger that is better than Stockfish at some point in my chess content creation career. That would be a lot of fun. So, we've got a new computer on the block who outdid all the others. 3,800 rated, won some very nice games against Stockfish, and I will be covering it uh on a rolling basis and adding it to the chess computers playlist. Been a while since I made a video like this.

[00:31:38]Get out of here.