1. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    02 Aug '12 21:21
    My favourite chess site (or, indeed, site of any sort) on the interweb is Chess Notes by Edward Winter. I could spend all day reading this and indeed have blocked it at work to stop me doing so:
    http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/

    However another excellent site which I rediscovered after several years when checking the O-O-O-O problem is Tim Krabbé's Chess Curiosities:
    http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/chess.html
    Part of which is the "110 Most Fantastic Moves Every Played":
    http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/mfm101110.htm
    (and then follow the links at the bottom).

    If you have an hour or two to spare, I can heartily recommend going through every one of these moves. It won't improve your chess ability a jot - that sort of stuff is well beyond any of us. But perhaps it will make you appreciate how imaginative the true masters of the chessboard can be and so increase your love of the game.
  2. e4
    Joined
    06 May '08
    Moves
    42492
    03 Aug '12 02:42
    Hi Fat Lady

    I've often said Winters site is the best in the net and I too spend
    many a happy hour just browsing and learning.

    I have 'Chess Explorations' and 'Kings Commoners and Knaves' excellent books
    when you cannot be bothered screen reading and want to play over games
    with a board.

    Tim Krabbe's site is also excellent and many an article has been inspired
    by just an idea from his pages.

    Of course I argue about his choice of games and the 110 best moves.
    It's always a personal choice.

    His No.1 choice was move 16...Nc6 from the game:

    Averbakh - Spassky, Leningrad 1956.

    Spassky writes:

    I have played 16...Nc6 because I did not see any other practical resources
    because my position was so passive. I was very surprised that Yuri Averbakh
    was thinking about 1 hour (!!) (55 min.)

    I considered that after 17.dxc6 bxc6 18.h6! Bh8 White would have two pieces up
    and they could manage the win very easy.

    Mark Taimanov wrote about 16...Nc6:
    "I would rather resign the game than to make such a move..."



    But my choice of the most brilliant move ever played is in game No. 98.

    Nezhmetdinov - Chernikov, Rostov 1962

    And White's 12th move. 12.Qxf6.

  3. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    03 Aug '12 07:501 edit
    Originally posted by greenpawn34
    But my choice of the most brilliant move ever played is in game No. 98.
    99 actually, but I agree that's far too low. And it's the only Nezhmetdinov game in the list; I probably would had half a dozen.

    Here's another queen sacrifice from Nezhmetdinov in probably his best known game:
  4. Joined
    26 Jan '12
    Moves
    637
    03 Aug '12 08:35
    I like 21

  5. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    03 Aug '12 09:50
    That one didn't make any impression with me. I played through the game hoping that the "fantastic move" would be obvious, but it wasn't and I had to go back to Krabbé's page to find out what it was: 10. Kd1. Is the idea simply that's White's king is safest on c2, or is there more to it?
  6. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    03 Aug '12 10:02
    Probably my favourite is #3 - Marshall's famous 23. ... Qg3.

    I notice that we've just missed the 100th anniversary of this move. It's a pity there wasn't some sort of celebration to mark the occasion.
  7. Standard memberatticus2
    Frustrate the Bad
    Liverpool
    Joined
    01 Nov '08
    Moves
    92474
    03 Aug '12 12:03
    Trouble with this stuff is it makes me feel like jacking it in :'( Why continue to churn out pedestrian error-strewn games in the delusional hope that, just once perhaps before I die, I might play something similar? I never will. I simply don't come close to understanding chess positions like these guys.

    I find Spassky's ...Nc6 too ridiculous to behold. I agree with Taimanov - it's simply 'unplayable' by a mere mortal. Yet of course any patzer could, and likely would, play it. But clearly Averbakh felt something was going on since it was Spassky who'd played it. Poor Averbakh! Imagine his tortured state of mind as Spassky edged the game away from him. It's almost as if Spassky was taking the p!ss, something the gentleman Spassky would never do of course.

    Nope, these moves delight and depress me. And I still have to work out Marshall's jaw-dropping, pocket-emptying Qg3 every time I see it 😀
  8. Donationketchuplover
    Isolated Pawn
    Wisconsin USA
    Joined
    09 Dec '01
    Moves
    71112
    03 Aug '12 12:10
    MacDonald vs. Burn (Liverpool 1910) 33...Qg4 seems worthy of inspection imo.
  9. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    03 Aug '12 12:46
    Originally posted by ketchuplover
    MacDonald vs. Burn (Liverpool 1910) 33...Qg4 seems worthy of inspection imo.
    That's a new one to me. It deserves a viewer:

    Poor old MacDonald plays like a broken man after 33. ... Qg4!
  10. Standard memberatticus2
    Frustrate the Bad
    Liverpool
    Joined
    01 Nov '08
    Moves
    92474
    03 Aug '12 13:23
    The game is known as 'Burn's Immortal', for obvious reasons. The move ...Qg4 is indeed fabulous although very much out of character: Burn was a dull player.

    Burn said he found it easily, given he was otherwise lost. From interest, I just ran the position through an engine. Houdini finds it instantly. It's a pretty safe bet most of the RHP 'top 30' would find it easily too 🙄
  11. e4
    Joined
    06 May '08
    Moves
    42492
    03 Aug '12 13:25
    Hi Atticus

    Theses games are to inspire us, not depress us, though I see exactely where
    you are coming from. 🙂

    I'm happy with a large chunk of my OTB games played in shock sac style.
    (none of which btw belong on the same page as any of the above.)
    But without them (and others.) I doubt if I could have produced any of them.

    Thread 131628 'Please post famous moves' we all had a shot
    at posting our favourite move.

    My first choice was a computer move from 1977!

    My best and most inspiring move by a human is still (and always will be)
    Craddock - Mieses London 1939. When as raw recruit I saw 7...Rb8 and the whole
    idea behind it unravelled before my impressionable eys I wanted to play 7...Rb8 moves.
    I've never got past this stage. That was the one that started it all.

    I'm the reverse of Atticus.
    When we play a game of chess we are stage directors conducting our actors
    and giving them their lines. I do comedies, but just once I'd like to play a
    Capablanca/Karpov style game. Inside every clown there is a Hamlet.
    But I would not make a habit of it. 🙂

    Craddock - Mieses London 1939

  12. Joined
    18 Jan '07
    Moves
    12361
    03 Aug '12 16:24
    Originally posted by atticus2
    Trouble with this stuff is it makes me feel like jacking it in :'( Why continue to churn out pedestrian error-strewn games in the delusional hope that, just once perhaps before I die, I might play something similar? I never will. I simply don't come close to understanding chess positions like these guys.
    The thing that I find most galling is that seeing these brilliancies will never make your own game any better. So you're told that this move is brilliant. Well, fine. If it's a massive sacrifice, you can even see why it is brilliant. If it isn't, maybe (and I mean maybe) the guy who claims that it is brilliant will deign to tell you, after the fact, and with full knowledge of how the game went from that point, why the move turned out to be brilliant after all, instead of a brilliant blunder Reveal Hidden Content
    and I strongly suspect some proclaimed brilliancies to be blunders that just weren\'t picked up on
    . So now you know.

    Except that you don't. You know why they turned out to be brilliant. But knowing why something was useful in a game as it unfolded is not really the same thing as knowing that it would have been just as useful had the opponent chosen a different reply six moves after the "brilliancy", and it is not the same thing at all as being able to spot it coming in your own games. Far from it. You can see all these esoteric moves a thousand times over, and never once have the chance to use a similar move in your own games.

    They may be beautiful, they may even be brilliant - useful or educational they are not.

    Richard
  13. Standard memberSwissGambit
    Caninus Interruptus
    2014.05.01
    Joined
    11 Apr '07
    Moves
    92274
    03 Aug '12 18:40
    I got to play a move exactly like the one that should have ended this game:
    Yes, 1-0! Black resigned when he had 36...Bg1!! winning.

    Believe it or not, I reached a similar position in one of my games and scored with that same ...Bg1 shot. So, it certainly didn't hurt that I had seen the Marco game before. 🙂
  14. Joined
    26 Jan '12
    Moves
    637
    03 Aug '12 22:03
    Originally posted by Fat Lady
    That one didn't make any impression with me. I played through the game hoping that the "fantastic move" would be obvious, but it wasn't and I had to go back to Krabbé's page to find out what it was: 10. Kd1. Is the idea simply that's White's king is safest on c2, or is there more to it?
    😴
  15. Joined
    21 Feb '06
    Moves
    6830
    03 Aug '12 23:331 edit
    Originally posted by Pacifique
    😴
    That's a rather disappointing response. Surely a lawyer should be more erudite than that? Come on, explain why you think that Kd1 is such a good move. Obviously at least one other person (Krabbé ) agrees with you. It's clearly a different sort of move to most of the others in the list as they are mostly unexpected tactical brilliancies, or at least positional sacrifices. I don't know what to make of Kd1 at all, it doesn't seem to have been the turning point of the game, so why do you like it?
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