The Temperature setting (right) applies to every Maia slot in the blend.
LC + Stockfish
Lichess ELO
Stockfish level
LC modes use the Lichess Open Explorer as an opening book; Stockfish takes over when the book runs dry.
Lichess is free, open-source, and ad-free — opening explorer, engine analysis, puzzles, and more:
lichess.org/analysis
LC + Maia 3
Lichess ELO
Maia 3 ELO
LC modes use the Lichess Open Explorer as an opening book; Maia 3 takes over when the book runs dry.
Maia 3 model
Checking…
Maia has its own free web app with analysis tools and play:
maiachess.com
Lichess is free, open-source, and ad-free — opening explorer and engine analysis:
lichess.org/analysis
Primary personality driver. Sliders below show each attractor's share. 0 cp = pure engine; 300 cp = strongly opinionated bot.
Blunder limit — hard floor
Hard floor150 cp
Bot will not play any single move costing more than this centipawn loss. Raised automatically if below Max CP Budget.
Move quality range
Exclude lowest: 0%Exclude moves above: 100%
← Bad Day, lowest probability movesGood Day, Highest Probability moves →
Sets the Maia3 probability band. Good Day = best moves; Bad Day = lower-probability alternatives.
Personality fingerprint
drag nodes or click axis to set value
Custom controls
Build your own attractor — pick a board feature, a phase, and a direction. Opens the Custom Controls tab.
Custom controls
Build your own attractor: pick a board feature, the phase it applies in, and a direction. Each one only re-ranks moves the engine already considers plausible. The centipawn budget is shared only among the controls active at the same time — so a control that's the only one active in its phase uses the full budget.
Strategic preferences
Piece focus
Left = avoid · Right = seek · Center = neutral
Preset personalities — sets all attractors
Opening Behavior
Book source, depth, and repertoire preferences
Off
As White
Off
Main Line
Repertoire
As Black
Off
Main Line
Repertoire
Off = straight to engine · Main Line = popular book moves · Repertoire = your selected openings (sum to 100%). Adding an opening switches that colour into Repertoire automatically.
Occasionally hesitates then takes longer — as if changing its mind
Move blink on forced moves
Plays obvious recaptures and forced replies instantly
Clock-pressure mirroring
Bot speeds up when your clock runs low
Time Weaponizer
Enable Time Weaponizer
When ahead on clock, plays instantly + drops ELO to pressure flagging. Opt-in.
Weaponizer controls
Clock lead30s
Seconds ahead to activate.
Position gate100 cp
Won't activate if bot losing by more than this.
Complexity injection
Prefer moves that maximise opponent decision burden
Time Pressure Play Degradation
How bot performance degrades as clock runs down
Dual curve
Curves active — bot degrades with clockBase ELO: 1500
ELO degradation — drag points
Max ELO drop300 ELO
Effective ELO vs think time — curve passes through Selected ELO at game start
Sigmoid baselineYour curveDrag handle
Move quality (distribution) — drag points
Min floor5%
Available move distribution (%) vs think time — 100% at game start
Sigmoid baselineYour curveDrag handle
Start ELO
1500
ELO @ 3s
—
ELO @ min
—
Dist @ min
5%
Options
Can flag
Allow bot to run out of time completely
Regan power rule
Doubling think time ≈ +50–70 ELO ELO(t) = E₀ − Δ · σ(log(t) anchored at game start)
How time pressure simulation works
The bot simulates a rated player under time pressure using two complementary mechanisms: ▸ ELO reduction — Maia is called at a lower ELO as the clock runs down, playing like a lower-rated player under time scramble. ▸ Distribution restriction — ELO stays fixed but only the top portion of Maia's move distribution is available (instinctive, less creative play — typical of a strong player with no time to calculate).
Both curves apply simultaneously. Switch the toggle to OFF to disable all time-pressure effects and play at constant strength.
How Bot Behavior Works
Move timing, quality degradation, and move selection pipeline
Reference
Move selection pipeline — order of operations
1
THINK TIME — calculated first, drives everything downstream
Think time per move is computed before the engine is queried. It combines the timing mode (pace, complexity-scaled, fixed, mirror), the Hustle attractor (fast +5 → slow −5 multiplier on base time), clock-pressure shortcuts (weaponizer, clock-mirror), and a ±20% jitter. This produces an actual think time in seconds that is then fed into both degradation curves — not a clock average. A hustler thinking 0.3 s sees heavy degradation; an overthinker thinking 12 s sees almost none.
2
ENGINE QUERY — Maia ELO degraded by think time (curve A)
Maia3 is queried at an ELO that curve A maps from the computed think time. Long think → ELO stays near target. Short think → ELO drops, producing the move distribution of a lower-rated player. The result is a probability for every legal move reflecting what a human at that (possibly degraded) rating would actually play.
3
QUALITY WINDOW — rank filter keyed on think time (curve B)
Moves are sorted best→worst by Maia probability. The Day Lower / Upper sliders define a percentile band; only moves inside the band remain eligible. Curve B narrows the upper bound using the same think time from step 1 — short think → smaller window → only instinctive first-pass moves remain. Luck shifts the entire window toward better or worse moves without changing its width.
4
BLUNDER GATE — hard eligibility floor
Any move below an absolute minimum probability, or more than the Blunder Limit below the best move in Maia probability, is discarded. Prevents attractor reweighting from ever surfacing a catastrophic blunder.
5
ATTRACTOR REWEIGHTING — per-move probability boosts
Each eligible move is simulated on a scratch board and scored against every active attractor slider. Result: p′ = p × exp(Σ logBoost). Attractors stack multiplicatively. CP Budget controls total magnitude — at 0 cp all attractors are silent.
Piece type — boosts moves by selected piece
Trade seeker — boosts captures + threats created
Space Cadet — boosts moves that reduce bot's weak squares (full board; discoveries + blocks counted)
Fort Knox — boosts moves that increase friendly coverage
Gambito — boosts ECO gambit continuations in opening
Attacker — boosts moves that increase pieces threatened
Structure — boosts pawn moves that tighten/loosen islands
Pawn strategic — flat boost to all pawn advances
6
TEMPERATURE SAMPLING — weighted random draw
Each reweighted probability is raised to p^(1/T), then one move is drawn proportionally. T < 0.15 → always picks the top move; T = 1.0 → unmodified Maia distribution; T > 1 → flattened toward uniform. Temperature can also be boosted by the Panicky pressure setting, scaled by how much of the quality window has been lost to curve B — short think time tightens the window and raises T simultaneously. The Coffeehouse Hustler personality overrides T with a phase curve: T = 5.0 in the opening (many pieces), fading to T = 0.6 in the endgame.
Think time feeds move quality — not just pacing
Think time is the central input to both degradation curves. Controls that shorten think time — the Hustle slider, the Weaponizer, clock-mirroring, the Blink shortcut — all reduce move quality through curves A and B, not just move speed. A bot configured to think 0.3 s per move will have its ELO degraded and its move pool narrowed to first-pass instinctive choices on every move, exactly as a human would under severe time pressure.