DD18 Breaking Down Brilliant Moves

Duckfest Digest 18

Breaking Down Brilliant Moves

Introduction
I could have learned about this earlier but up to this point I have ignored forum topics about brilliant moves for the simple reason that I thought I understood them well enough. And also because most forum posts were created by players that have never been able to pull them off, depicting brilliant moves almost like mythical events. 
While I was able to play them on a regular basis, roughly every 8-15 games. Despite having no concrete plans of ever using them, I did want to save them for later usage. Not from the start but somewhere early 2022, probably not too long after the introduction of libraries, I started saving them. Now that I finally have taken the time to explore my brilliant moves, I’m disappointed. Instead of receiving an ego boost after reviewing a collection of moves that highlight my exceptional brilliancy, I became skeptical of brilliant moves. I’m not sure if the concept is flawed or the implementation is flawed but I don’t like it as much as I thought I would.

Ridiculous relativity
One obvious problem with the current implementation system is that moves are not brilliant in an absolute sense, they are determined based on a player's rating. Now that I understand it more, I hate the relative nature of it. 

I understand the reasoning. It makes sense that a move can be unremarkable when played in a game between Carlsen and Giri, but when played at my level, that same move can be spectacular and indeed brilliant.
But there are some obvious downsides

• I’ve been saving games in which I played a brilliant move in a library for a while. This was after chess.com changed the definition. However, due to their relative nature, when I went over the games I bookmarked, in many of them there no longer was a move rated as brilliant.  
• I can’t ever share a brilliant move, because it’s not an objectively brilliant move, it’s a brilliant move for someone at my level. It might not show as a brilliant move to the observer. It might not even be a brilliant move when the observer is future me!

But that’s just my personal opinion. There's another consideration and it involves Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein
Why bring Albert Einstein into the argument? Is it because was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived? A little bit. Was it because he was the embodiment of brilliancy? Also, yeah. A little bit. But mostly because he has something to say about brilliancy and relativity.

Brilliancy not only refers to exceptional talent or intelligence, but also to intense bright light. Einstein, of course, became a legend because of his scientific discoveries about the fundamental properties of light. He permanently changed the way we think about space and time because he showed us we needed to change the way we perceive light. His general theory of relativity proved that we shouldn’t consider the speed of light to be relative. Instead he demonstrated that space and time are relative, because the speed of light is not. 

Here is my logic

Degrees of brilliancy

While looking into my brilliant moves I found four categories

• Actual brilliant moves
• Obvious brilliant moves (technically they fit the definition, but they are hardly brilliant)
• Standard brilliant moves (technically they fit the definition, but they are so common, they hardly classify as brilliant)
• Not brilliant. Just sacrifices. WTF?

Actual brilliant moves
Brilliant moves that are actual brilliant moves.

These are textbook examples of brilliant moves. To be perfectly clear, this does not mean I personally would label them as brilliant moves myself. I find it difficult to categorize a move that I found easily during a game as a brilliant move. Almost by definition. It feels way more natural to me to apply the label brilliant to moves I would never be able to find myself. 

That being said, there are some great moves I played that I was (am) certainly proud of. Moves that were the indisputable best move in the position, that involved some fancy sacrifice and moves that most certainly won’t be found by all of my peers. It’s within this context that I call these brilliant moves: actual brilliant moves.

Example

Don’t scroll down!! Or do it slowly, if you want to look at the position before I show the full context and the move I played.

White to move

Full game review

Obvious brilliant moves
Not obviously brilliant, but brilliant moves that are obvious (to play)

The second category are the moves I would call: obvious brilliant moves. Similar to the actual brilliant moves (shown above) the moves that fall into this category are indisputably the strongest moves and also involve a fancy sacrifice. The big difference is in how brilliant they are. Many of my brilliant moves (most actually) are considered brilliant according to an algorithm, but would not be categorized as such by a human. Because they are so obvious.

Example

Don’t scroll down!! Or do it slowly, if you want to look at the position before I show the full context and the move I played.

Black to move

Full game review

Just like the previous example the move is spectacular, it was indisputably the best move and I was sacrificing a piece. It’s even a cool move. It has all the characteristics of a brilliant move, except for one crucial element: Finding the best move in this position is not hard. It’s easy. In fact, it’s hard not to find the best move. Sure, low rated players might not immediately find it, but since my brilliant moves are evaluated based on my rating level, it’s safe to say it's a fantastic move, but hardly brilliant.

Standard brilliant moves
Brilliant moves that are so common, it feels wrong to call them brilliant

Just like actual brilliant moves and obvious brilliant moves, these are great spectacular moves, that are without a doubt the best moves to play and they involve a fancy sacrifice. However, these moves lack a feeling of brilliancy. Not just because they are easy to find, but because they have already been found time and again. 

Example

Don’t scroll down!! Or do it slowly, if you want to look at the position before I show the full context and the move I played.

Black to move

Showing the brilliant move

According to the Lichess database available on openingtree.com, this position has been played over 40 thousand times and over 95% of players will go for 7. Bf5. To me, that hardly qualifies as brilliant. It’s great but everyone plays it and since we are only on move 7, it’s more about opening prep than about brilliant chess. 
That being said, I greatly respect any player that has not seen the position before and finds the move.

NOT brilliant moves
Moves that involve a sacrifice but are not great moves.

I’m proud of the brilliant moves I have played that are actual brilliant moves, less so of the obvious brilliant moves and not really proud of the standard brilliant moves. But, overall I’m proud of my stats. It gives me some satisfaction to know that I play about two or three times as many brilliant moves as my peers. Until I discovered this last category. The brilliant moves that have disappointed me most when I was looking into my brilliant moves. Regardless of how difficult they are to find and whether I could be proud of them or not.
These moves don’t fit the single most important criterion: they are not the best moves! 

Example

No warning this time! Unlike the previous examples, there is no reason to look at the position in. The brilliant move in this position is not the best move but it does involve a sacrifice. If you want, feel free to guess which sacrifice that was not the best move, was labeled ‘brilliant’.

Black to move

The move 15. Bxg3 is considered a brilliant move, but it’s not the best move when I go back one ply and ask the engine for recommended lines (at the same depth of 22). On my local machine I’ve let Stockfish 15 run for a while up to depth 37, but at no point did Bxg3 come close to being the best move.
I don’t regret playing it at all, but calling it a brilliant move undermines the whole idea.

Wrap up

Please let me know if any of the games I used return different results with regards to brilliant moves.

Thanks all for reading!