I am a lousy chess player — however the sis an awful situation. And anyone case see it coming clear as a bell
Maybe surprisingly, chess is actually an acquired skill which takes practice. If you wasted enough time playing chess against a computerized opponent, I can guarantee that you would be able to beat most people who believe that they are good players.
One of the other fire officers that I worked with at a busy downtown station 25 years ago thought that he was one of the greatest chess players who ever lived. At that time I basically only played chess with a small computerized chess board that came from Radio Shack in the mid 1980s. I would play a game or two in the evening every night before going to bed to relax.
The poor guy would spend a lot of time trying to figure out his moves... I would take just a few seconds and beat him every time until he finally got frustrated and didn't want to play with me anymore. The program I was playing against was fairly predictable even at the upper levels, so I recognized situations developing from that predictability. This sharpened my skills a great deal.
Now that I have not played much in years, I am back to being mediocre.