The strange case of the 2000 who couldn’t play chess

If a chess player made a Christmas list, I think most of us would ask for more Elo. Is there anyone on this site who doesn’t wish they were 50 points higher rated? Well, Christmas came early for me when I played against an opponent who was handing out Elo like presents from their sack.

Recently, I’ve been working on getting my rapid rating above 2000, which I’ve done several times, but then a bad losing streak sets me back below it. Then I once again have to slowly climb back up the mountain and hope next time I can stay up. So, I sat down and clicked the 10+5 button to see who Lichess would pair me against.

At first, it seemed I had a normal opponent. They were rated 2009, slightly above me, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The first couple of moves were normal and I played a Sicilian Dragon. Then suddenly, without any warning, my opponent blundered their knight. For seemingly no reason, they moved it to a square where I could easily take it with my pawn. I was stunned – was this some kind of tactic? Was there some crazy follow up to justify this sacrifice?

I hesitantly took the knight and then . . . nothing. There was no follow up, no tactic, my opponent had just hung a knight for no reason. I was baffled, had my opponent lost a bet? Did someone dare them to hang the knight? Were they doing some sort of challenge to prove they could still win even down a piece?

We played on and things only got more bizarre.

The next red flag was when they moved their rook to h2. This is the kind of move only a complete beginner would make. It does absolutely nothing to improve white’s position, in fact it only makes it more vulnerable. It is the kind of move someone who has just learned how the pieces move would make. I began to wonder – did my opponent not know how to play chess?

Saying someone doesn’t know how to play chess is an insult that is often thrown around, but I don’t mean to be insulting. I looked at the moves my opponent was making, how they hung pieces on nearly every second move and seemed oblivious to even my most obvious threats. I won their Queen without much effort, I don't think they knew it was under attack. The only possible explanation is that this person had a vague idea of how the pieces moved and not much else.

But how is this possible? My opponent had played almost 500 rapid games and over 20,000 blitz games, they were rated higher than 90% of rapid players. You don’t get to this level without knowing how to play chess well. It didn’t make any sense because no one gets to 2000 by hanging pieces and making pointless rook moves. Their account history didn’t show anything suspicious, they gained and lost rating like a normal player without sign of sandbagging. It was if a talented chess player had a younger brother who was playing on their account. The only explanation I could think of was that they forgot to log out and some friend or family member who rarely played chess decided to play on their account.

After the game (needless to say, I won), I had a bright idea and challenged them to a rematch. I mean, if Santa was handing out free Elo to everyone who asked, wouldn’t you ask again? Funnily enough, even now I was wondering there was some sort of catch. Maybe I was going to be hustled, maybe they intentionally lost the first game to make me careless and then they would crush me in the rematch. But no, I again won easily.

My opponent played their moves very quickly and I matched their pace, as if I was afraid they would disappear if I waited too long. It felt like I had stumbled upon some creature from a Russian folktale, a creature that appears only once in a blue moon with the rating of an expert but the skill of a beginner. Maybe if you perform some ancient ritual this opponent will appear before you and grant you a gift of Elo.

In the second game I traded off pieces in order to damage their structure, which is normally a good idea, but perhaps a little too subtle under the circumstances. I missed a tactic that would have won my opponent's Queen, which in any other game against a 2000 would have had me kicking myself. But when your opponent freely hangs their Bishops, you don't need to worry about finding tactics.

I rematched a third time - I mean I could hardly leave my rating at 1999, could I? An early Rook b1 followed by hanging several pieces culminating in the Queen, confirmed that my opponent had not returned to their 2000 skill. Then I decided to cash out.

The moral of the story of the goose that lays the golden egg (and most folklore about meeting magical creatures that grant wishes) is don’t get greedy. Three games seemed fair to me, after that it would feel like exploitation. I began to worry if the games would raise any red flags with Lichess, maybe an admin would think my opponent was a friend of mine who I bribed to lose just to boost my Elo. Maybe after several games of almost 99% accuracy, I would trigger some anti-cheat alarm. The whole situation was unbelievable, so I decided to leave before it got too crazy.

Funnily enough, my opponent had “accuracy” scores of 77%, 81% and 86% for the games, which shows the flaw in taking these ratings too literally as the computer just stopped counting after the first blunder. I would personally rate their accuracy quite a lot lower.

That day, my opponent played 9 games and lost almost exactly 100 points, falling from 2067 to 1968. But as a strange conclusion to a strange tale, the next day they returned to normal. They played two rapid games and won both of them by playing reasonable and logical chess. They have even gained 80 points in blitz in the past week. Whatever curse afflicted them has been lifted.