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I usually judge a human opponent seeing his rating and decide my move considering his moves while I face him in a chess board. If his or her rating is greater than me by around 100, I pay much concentration and a degree of honor to my opponent. In the case of my human opponent, I sometimes may get blunders if he is even a GM, and it may lead to a win for me. But if the opponent is an engine, hopefully, he should make no mistakes or blunders. So, What would be the perfect approach for me while I know that the rival is a computer so that I feel no pain at all if I lose the game?

Mohammad Shahinur Islam
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The answer is the usual: Do you feel humiliated if a cheetah outruns you? An elephant beats you in a weight-lifting contest? I couldn't care less if a computer beats me at chess (they already did 40 years ago, even if I am a FM) and still wait for the first "general" AI. It's a bit pointless to play a computer anyway (unless you don't do it for the win, but for other things - checking your repertoire or whatever, there are enough possibilities).

Hauke Reddmann
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I am not quite sure, if this answers your question, but no human will ever win against an engine, that is actually trying.

Feeling bad for losing against a computer at chess, is akin to feeling bad, for losing to a calculator at calculating.

cum-bria
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I think it is not a good idea to take into account the level of one's opponent when playing chess. Possibly it helps scoring some wins (by doing things like avoiding tactical complications if playing weaker players and seeking them out against stronger players, in order to increase P(blunder)), but it is equally possible that knowing the opponent's rating leads to either undue self-doubt or arrogance, depending on sign of the rating differential, and thus to weaker play; but I digress.

State of the art chess engines are pretty much unbeatable for humans. However, they strictly play the board, not the opponent, and therefore chances of a draw might be higher than against a top human (if one is oneself below top human level) if a draw is all one aims for. I think very strong humans can expect to occasionally draw against Stockfish even when it runs on top hardware, maybe unless specialized settings are used that make the engine work to avoid draws.

Other than that, playing weaker engines can still be fun. I personally enjoy playing against Leela Zero set to run without lookahead (one playout only) in the Nibbler GUI, with the current T2 network. With these settings, it plays an incredibly instructive positional game that should slowly crush even strong humans, but makes occasional tactical mistakes that give strong players a real chance to win. Stronger humans can adjust this recipe by giving it some limited lookahead, weaker ones can use one of the weaker networks.

Polytropos
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  • Although I couldn't totally agree with the statement that it is not a good idea to take into account the level of one's opponent when playing chess because if the opponent is a GM or an IM, he can anytime makes even the clear position very unsound for any player who has no norm at all. May be you may oppose here. – Mohammad Shahinur Islam Dec 25 '23 at 15:22
  • But when I played against a top-rated bot, I simultaneously lost all the games. Although it didn't make me ashamed at all because engines, whatever the circumstances are, have better calculations than me,I was only ashamed when this was a very common phenomenon against all strong human opponents who usually avoid blunders.Even in the case of an online game (rapid or blitz) when someone uses an engine, I suddenly in most cases begin to make easy blunders leading to a miserable fate.Although I can give report against them but it's sometimes quite arduous to address whether he is cheating or not. – Mohammad Shahinur Islam Dec 25 '23 at 15:26
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Play correspondence chess

Now you can use your own engines too, so you still only lose if you make a mistake (and win if your opponent makes a mistake).

PS: Engines can and do make mistakes.

Allure
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