Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, in November of 2022, everything changed. ChatGPT was born. Suddenly there were massive breakthroughs. Suddenly there were existential problems and questions about careers.

Speaker 2: But one thing that ChatGPT absolutely catastrophically failed in was playing chess. But one thing that ChatGPT absolutely catastrophically succeeded in was creating content for the Gotham Chess YouTube channel.

Speaker 1: And today, I am so excited to announce, ChatGPT is back.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the 2025 ChatBot Chess Championship here on the Gotham Chess YouTube channel. 8 bots. Now we are down to 3 semifinalists and today we crown the next one. Now if you're joining in the middle of the tournament, there's a playlist so you can catch up on the action. If you've been following along here in January of 2025, welcome to the last quarterfinal match. May I remind you of the bracket? Here it is. Stockfish defeated Snapchat. Grock defeated Gemini. Yesterday a heartbreaking defeat for Martin versus Copilot, who actually proved to be a very scary foe. And today we decide who moves on to face Copilot in the second semifinal. And of course we are awaiting to see, will we get a rematch between Stockfish and ChatGPT? The chess match heard around the world, quite literally, it's got like 10 plus million views, maybe even more at this point. It's probably like the most viewed chess match ever, frankly. I don't even know why we still have humans play against each other. This is way more, this is way more fun. Here we go, folks. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you are watching from the YouTube algorithm, welcome to the chess world. I've got plenty of beginner and intermediate friendly content. I've got a chess book, it's called How to Win at Chess. I've got an educational platform, you can check that out as well. In the meantime, here we go, ChatGPT with the white pieces, MetaAI with the black pieces, MetaAI getting no credit. It's the underdog, getting overlooked in this match. Well, the game opens with C4. I'm already like dying of, ooh, coughing up a storm here. C4 is the English opening and the idea of C4 is to control the center with the knight behind the C pawn as well as the bishop. Already an exotic move, not something that we have seen in the chatbot chess championship. MetaAI responding with E5, taking control of the center of the board. I have played this position with white and with black. This is what we call the reverse Sicilian defense. Knight C3 chosen by ChatGPT, a very natural follow-up. And we have knight to F6 fighting for the center as well. White playing G3, so far so good, implementing all of the ideas of the English opening, an opening I highly recommend to intermediate players. Not for beginner players so much, a little bit tougher to play. But you guys, you know, fried liver, Ponziani, Scotch. D6, not a bad move, moving a pawn in the center of the board. The reason why I don't like this move is it blocks the dark squared bishop. Fine, but so far so good. All right, bishop goes to G2 and the knight comes out. If you're watching this as a beginner, this is really how you should play chess. Put pawns more or less in the center of the board or fighting for the center. Develop your knight, develop your bishop. Yeah, E3. ChatGPT playing this move, not to put the knight here and end up blocking the light squared bishop, but to put the knight on the E2 square, where it will still fight for the center, but the bishop will stay on this powerful diagonal. This is the English bishop. Another thing, keep in mind, look at this, a bunch of pawns on the dark squares. That means that this bishop will struggle a little bit, but this bishop is very happy and the dark squares are going to be very, very nice. So far so good, excellent game by the players. Bishop to E7, knight to E2, excellent stuff here. Black plays A6, which I got to tell you, meta AI, that's a little bit of a weird one, but I don't completely hate it. We have castles here, and now what black should do is play castle and finish up the development of the light squared bishop and probably begin playing in the center. Unfortunately, it does not take long, and the thing is, you know, you look at these chat bots and you're like, are they good? When are they going to start doing stupid stuff? They're kind of like, you know, hey, do something, you know, well, yeah, B5. B5 is a disastrous move. We see right away the trampolining eval bar. That is because every time a move happens in chess, you got to ask yourself, what did that used to do? Well what it used to do is it used to defend the knight. And now bishop C6 is not only a free knight, it is a fork, and you win much more than that. But shockingly, chatGBT plays the really powerful pawn to B3, and by really powerful, I mean absolutely not powerful whatsoever. That move sucks.

Speaker 1: Chat, what? What? B3.

Speaker 2: Now, we don't have to wait too long for the theatrics to begin, because in this position on the heels of the uber aggressive pawn to B5 leaving the knight to hang, not only did Meta.ai not defend the knight, Meta ate its own bishop, playing Qe7. So now Meta is down a bishop. It's about to be down a knight, and on top of that, this rook is going to be taken. So really, with its previous move, Meta lost 11 points of material. I straight up think that is a world record. You lose three, you lose another three, and you're going to lose five. At least on the previous move, you would have not lost the bishop, and the queen would have been defending the rook. That's crazy. I straight up do not think a move has ever been made in history that loses 11 points of material. I know you guys like to be like, well, I've done that before, like as a joke. No, you literally haven't. That's not possible. So Qe7. And yet, clearly Meta.ai and chatGBT have a mutual blind spot, and said very principled pawn to d4, pushing a pawn in the center of the board. Very nice idea. Good concept, because now black is down a bishop, and if the opponent's king is still in the center of the board, it's good to trade it, because in the future, you might get a rook here. By the way, in all of this stupidity, there is still plenty of stuff to learn. d4. Pawn takes d4. Knight takes d4. Nice idea. Also, pawn takes would have been pretty good, but this knight is passive, and this knight is massive, so you know what else is massive? I've been following the memes. Knight takes d4, and now queen takes d4. By the way, that rook is now just absolutely there. If bishop takes rook is a one-way plane ticket. It's there. Black castles. It's there. If bishop a8 is there, again, on the previous move, it kind of was there, but not really, because the knight just took on d4, so you needed to. Now white just goes bip, and then comes back bip, and I don't know why the bishop turned Dutch, but you know, bip, bip, and there you go. You know, and then you've got to move to Den Haag or something. Bishop back to g2. Bishop a8 and bishop g2. None of that happens, okay? In this position, bishop b2 is played by chadgbt, playing great chess, may I say. Bishop and queen. In all chess games, you've got to kind of plan, just sort of see where the attacks are, the checkmate patterns. Black here plays a5. a5 is a bad move for two reasons. First of all, you're hanging a pawn. Second of all, you're still hanging a rook. So like, that's stupid that you didn't take care of that. Now, a5 is played, and in this position, we have c takes b5, because look, I think basically chadgbt is looking at meta as like a younger cousin. You know you have a family playdate, and your family brings some random ogres to your house? I'm not saying you guys are Shrek, I mean some of you are, but you know, you got my point. And then you got like this cousin who you see like twice a year, and you're like playing chess, and the cousin's just a baby, like literally like one years old, and just crying, and you just gotta let him have it. Well, this is kind of what that feels like. By the way, here a takes b5 is played. You can't do that, that's not allowed, but we'll, you know, we'll let it slide. And you know, a4 is played, and now for the first time in like an hour, meta accidentally saves its rook. Meta plays rook a5, defending the pawn on the b5 square, but not really, because it's attacked by two pieces, and they're both worth less than the rook. So really, that is not a defense. Knight takes b5 here is played by chadgbt. Who is just Dyson vacuuming the position? Like, at this point, I was shocked, because all these chatbots are doing some stupid stuff. Clearly, chadgbt was embarrassed by the videos that I made about it in 2024, and decided that it was going to be a better individual. In fact, I might have even made those videos in 2023. I don't remember at this point. The last five years sort of fused together, all right? Knight takes b5 on the board. Queen e5 is the move chosen here by meta.ai. That is a queen trade, absolutely. You would trade the queens. Of course, then you would win a pawn, and probably win another pawn. And the way white wins a position like this is just simplify, simplify. Trade down, win some pawns, advance your pawns, make another queen. White is doing very, very well. But instead, queen d2, a principled retreating move, targeting the queen with the bishop, and also defending the bishop. That's an absolutely fantastic move. Discovered attack peekaboo on the queen in the center, who proceeds to slide over. And now we get rook c1. This is another absolutely fantastic move.

Speaker 1: Rook c1, targeting the queen, which proceeds to go back to the e5 square. Okay, yeah, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Now here, chadgpt castles. So black plays h6. Chadgpt did just decide, you know, I'm going to castle again. What's the big deal? What? Oh, yeah? A castle. Yeah. Might as well. Fantastic. Okay, terrific.

Speaker 2: Double castling. That's very, very good. We have three castling in one game. h6 is played, and now rook e1. Now, if you are wondering whether the queen is hanging in the center, yeah, but that's not important. Like, what are you? You don't know. You know, you're like the, you're like the adult that's watching Dora the Explorer and trying to, you know, tell the kid to like, I mean, relax. I understand. It's hanging. Let them make art. They're making art. This is what this is. Queen c5, moving the queen out of the danger of the bishop and into the danger of the rook. But look, everybody knows that when you can take a queen and a queen, and for the record, one thing I have not addressed at all is there's a rook hanging. It's free. It's there. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Queen, yeah. But anyway, and by the way, you also have a fork in case you don't want to take the queen. We have bishop d4, okay? Bishop d4 attacking the queen again. Now the queen is attacked. The queen is attacked and the rook is attacked. So black here makes a bold, daring getaway by playing queen takes c7, which not only loses a queen to two full pieces on top of that, you crashed into your own pawn on the way out of the house. Now you crashed the car into the pawn. But chadgpt is playing with the baby cousin at Thanksgiving. So it plays queen c3, targeting this, targeting this, targeting that, and it doesn't take. And now queen c6, I am not exaggerating. That is what meta AI played, clearly showing us it does not have any abilities whatsoever in chess. Everything is hanging in this position. But here, chadgpt plays the very principled move. Everybody knows this. When an opponent's queen is hanging to three different pieces, third one being the defense of the rook, and this, the right thing to do, folks, is to take the piece in front of the king because you get to open up their position. That is what you should do. Don't take it from me. Take it from the chat bots, which is why in this position, chadgpt followed up on the bishop capture and played queen d2. Queen d2, with the idea to threaten to take the queen for like the 13th time this game. Queen d2, and yeah, king g7, the powerful response here, chosen from meta, defending both of its pawns and re-blundering 14 points of material for another move in a row. But you haven't seen anything yet. Here, knight d4 chosen, a very powerful idea, now threatening the queen again, three different ways, just absolutely immortal stuff here. Finally, finally, meta AI wakes up and realizes I need to defend my rook and also get my queen out of danger, and it doesn't defend its rook or get its queen out of danger, as you can still take the queen and the rook is still 100% free, and it took.

Speaker 1: Finally chadgpt decided that the baby cousin was not going to mess with its emotions anymore. But the plot twists of this game are not done.

Speaker 2: Meta AI, the annoying baby cousin at Thanksgiving, now proceeds to start playing intergalactic chess, because in this position, it responds to losing its queen by playing ROOK. This is the scariest part, because you have no idea where this rook is going to teleport. This rook is now a missile, it is flying somewhere, and it flies toward a1.

Speaker 1: To which chadgpt promptly responds, rook takes a1.

Speaker 2: Okay, crisis averted, f5. Powerful move from meta AI, doesn't have many pieces left, and now the mature and sophisticated older cousin, that is chadgpt, launches its own missile, to a7. Absolutely teleporting through its a4 pawn, absolutely not important, it is going for the king. Now, meta AI plays a trick as old as time, knight to c6 from non-existence. Do you think chadgpt will notice that there is a knight eering, eerily standing, I said eering, instead of leering, it is just standing there, mean mugging everybody. Yeah, it notices, bishop takes c6. And now folks, for this next phase of the game, you know, these chadbots, they do a lot of stuff, pieces teleport, they fly all over the board, they reappear. One thing that has not yet happened in the chadbot chess championship, is this.

Speaker 1: In this position, meta AI plays king f1. Now you may be asking yourself, excuse me sir, isn't chadgpt playing with white? Yeah, meta AI said I play king f1. Okay so for meta's turn, it is moving an opponent's piece now.

Speaker 2: Fine, chadgpt plays rook a8. I can't really explain this move, but it doesn't really matter. At this point, meta proceeds to play king e2, meta is done moving it's own pieces because it's position is bad. So it decides it's just going to start moving, yo, it's literally possessing the king. The king is under mind control, and it's going to walk itself into the center of the board and get captured. At this point, chadgpt realizes times are tough, and it needs to end the game immediately before things get out of hand any further. Which is why in this position, chadgpt plays queen g5 check. That is a bold strategy. First of all because it's illegal, second of all because it can be taken, but third of all, I'm not sure chadgpt trusts it's opponent to have the presence of mind to play hxg5. And guess what? It doesn't. And here chadgpt does something very unethical. I am very unhappy with it, because it was the bigger man, well, sort of, it's a but, the entire game. And here, chadgpt plays queen takes h6, checkmate. And that is not nice. Not because it's actually checkmate. It's not checkmate. The king can go to g8. It's not that it won the game, it's that it's trying to end the game against the baby cousin. It's trying to lie to meta.ai that it won this game. It did not. And I had to be like, excuse me chadgpt, it's not mate. And it said, oh my mistake, queen f6. Now the trickiest thing about these bots is, will they actually find a mate? Sometimes you gotta ask them questions, sometimes you gotta see. So queen f6 on the board, and now for one final hurrah, just when you thought it was over, meta.ai was on the ropes and it was going to quit, queen e7 played by black.

Speaker 1: And now the moment of truth.

Speaker 2: Would chadgpt have the presence of mind to not tunnel vision here and end up taking this queen?

Speaker 1: If it doesn't, this is going to be the comeback of the century. But it spots it. Queen takes e7.

Speaker 2: The king moves forward to g7. Chadgpt brings the knight to help the queen. Now yes, that hangs a knight, but shut up. Okay, bishop takes f5 as a free knight, but we have check, and now it's checkmate in two. By force, queen g5 check, and queen to g7, no matter where the king moves. You have to give a check, because if you go here, the bishop could take the knight and extend the game, or give a check and extend the game by another move or two, it doesn't really matter. But in this position, queen f6 on the board, and for one final moment, the knight comes to h6, reappearing on the board, trying to draw attention away. Chadgpt plays queen, g7 mate. And let me tell you, that was perhaps the most convincing performance that we have seen yet in the chatbot chess championship. Chadgpt played a few nonsensical moves, but oh my god, it was so much better than MetaAI. It just won an incredible game. Here there was teleporting pieces, we saw mind control, that's not something that we've seen yet, and now we know Stockfish is in the semifinals. One thing that Stockfish has not been programmed to do is play moves when its opponent dictates it, and that's on the table. And so folks, that takes me to our final bracket. Here it is. Stockfish will take on Grock, and CoPilot is going to take on Chadgpt. Wild stuff. And then we might be heading for a Stockfish-Chadgpt final match in the 2025 chatbot chess championship. The first one ever, and by popular demand, the last one ever. Or maybe not, and we turn this into an annual thing. I've been having a lot of fun covering these games.

Speaker 1: If this is your first chess video, they're not all like this. Well, sort of. You know where to find me if you need me, I've got plenty more videos. Check out Chessly, and get out of here.