Originally Posted by Socks

I am a chess player, and if you've *ever* beaten that chess.com game, then it's not very difficult at all. It's probably no more than a 1400-1500 real life rating. The top grandmasters are rated in the 2700-2900 range, and on ICC some people are well over 3,000.

Every 100 points is a pretty large difference in skill level, and 200 points is HUGE. So a 1500 player could beat an 1700 player sometimes, but very rarely. A 1500 player would have little to no chance against a 1900+ player. Maybe 1 out of 100 games in a long game, and a little more in a short game where you can clock them or they make a blunder. A 2000 rated played has NO chance against a 2300 player. A 2300 player is probably a Master or International Master (IM) but would have very little chance against a 2500+ Grandmaster. In fact the GM could make silly non-sensical moves to begin the game and still beat the IM handily.

If you want to improve your chess game, never go back to chess.com, and visit playchess.org (FICS) which is a free server.. Use the Babaschess program (free download) it's quite good.

If you really want to get into it, the ICC (Internet Chess Club) I think chessclub.com, they charge $50 a year for an account, but it's much better. You can watch real grandmasters play all the time, take lessons from better players, play tournaments, view lectures, etc etc. There are also MANY computer accounts that play, and they're denoted with "(C)" so you know who they are. They have varied strengths too.

If you played a 2200+ computer account, you would never, ever win a game. Ever. And some of the computers are above 3,000 rating level. The computer could have 2 minutes to play its game, and you could have infinite time, and you would still never win a game. If you lose a pawn, or even have any positional disadvantage at any point of the game, and you should resign immediately. They're just that good.

Anyways not to discourage you, that's the beauty of chess! You will never stop learning.