Blog #9: Three Brilliant Moves in One Game!!!

Dear chess.com community, allow me to pose you all an interesting question - how rare do you think achieving one brilliant move in a game is? Indeed, even one brilliant move is not easy to earn, let alone three brilliant moves in a single game!

Well, it has been over a month since I posted my last blog, so here am I again to make a recap on my absolutely mind-blowing game played on this very site!

Introduction

It was such a memorable and unforgettable occasion for me. Even until today, I can still picture the entire experience in my mind with absolute clarity... 

I was chilling in front of the couch inside my cosy hotel room at Genting, Malaysia. In fact, it was the same place where I finally crossed the 1000 rating barrier.

Hold on... are you curious why I mentioned the phrase 'in front of the couch'? You've heard it right! I decided not to lay on the comfortable couch as I needed to summon my fullest concentration.

Anyways, while the television was blaring ever so loudly, I focused on my game so intently to the point where I unconsciously pushed away the distractive noises coming from the speakers.

Alright, back to the game we go! It was an intense match, partly because I was constantly worried about throwing away my hard-earned rating points.

Just so you know, my rating was at its peak of 2057, finally crossing the 2050 rating milestone. This was probably the main reason I was fumbling with my digital chess pieces, not to mention the chilly weather on the opposite side of the sliding doors.

Surprisingly, I have found quite a number of spectacular moves during the game. Afterwards, I decided to analyse the game for fun to check whether or not I achieved a brilliant move. However, my astonishment kicked in as I definitely wasn't expecting three brilliant moves! This will surely be one of my best games ever played on chess.com.

Details about the particular game:

1. Chess.com game
2. Rated live game
3. Time format: 3 min blitz
4. Game ended: December 11, 2022
5. No. of moves: 31 moves
6. My rating: 2000+ 
7. Opponent's rating: 2000+
8. Me: White pieces
9. Opponent: Black pieces
10. Result: White is victorious
11. Accuracy: 86.5, 80.5
12. Stockfish depth = 30

Having said all that, why not we delve into the legendary game?

Here is the final book move of this game. The Alapin Variation is currently my favourite counter against the Sicilian Defense. This is because it can easily be transposed into something similar to a common opening line of the French Defense.

Plus, I dislike playing into sharp positions where my well-prepared opponent will have high chances of outplaying me. Therefore, I always try to keep the position as simple as possible so I can easily navigate my way through these games.

However, there is the exception of the Acciaccatura Attack, where I make the position as complicated and aggressive as possible. If you have yet to check out my blogs on the opening variation of my own invention, please do so because not only you are guaranteed to be amazed, but it will also serve you well during your games (provided you have have some fairly accurate and aggressive attacking skills).

Since this particular opening line has such a lengthy name, I will simply place it above this paragraph as a reference just in case you are interested to know. If you wish to further explore the Alapin Variation, I will strongly encourage you to do so as you will have a much better understanding of the main ideas behind this opening variation.

As a reminder to those who have read my very first blog, I played against the Sicilian Defense with the white pieces, pretty similar to this game. Which opening variation was applied in that game? The first ten to answer in the comments section below will receive some appreciation awards from me!

On move 9, I played an inaccurate move, giving black a slight edge over the evaluation bar. If the knights and queens were traded off, white will be left with two isolated pawns, which would signify a bad pawn structure. Unsurprisingly, Stockfish considered this move as a mistake.

My opponent played a reasonable move, developing the bishop and putting pressure on the pinned knight. However, Stockfish has a slight distaste for this move, unmercifully classifying the move as a 'mistake'.

Most average players won't especially focus on the quality of the moves during the opening phase of the game. Are you able to memorise the first 10 moves in most opening variations? I doubt it as it's extremely difficult for us to accomplish. We will just play sensible developing moves in order to slowly build up the position.

That's why the more we practice, the better we become! Do you still remember how long the full name of this opening line is? The both of us surely played multiple times with this opening variation so we were quite familiar with the book moves.

On move 12, both sides have castled their kings to safety. Hence, development was partially completed. It's time to steer those bishops, queen and rooks into action! During the middlegame, development is essential as passive pieces will control lesser space.

Let's just say you allowed your opponent to activate their pieces efficiently, you might've placed yourself in a dangerous and risky situation where anytime your opponent could quickly mobilise their strong and powerful army to launch a huge attack against your underdeveloped pieces.

On move 17, I blundered a pawn and undeveloped my powerful knight at the same time! The temporary attack on the queen was completely pointless. It was an absolutely atrocious decision made by myself, and I should have known better!

Still, it always helps to learn from my mistakes as the more mistakes I rectified, the stronger I become at making better choices during critical positions.

Gradually, navigating my way through tough positions will seem more natural to me, but I will have to exert plenty of effort in order to learn how to identify the most effective moves. Sooner or later, my instinct will be adapted to spot various tactics as the most obvious move is often not the best move!

Before this move occurred, the game was pretty balanced, where none of the players gained a significant advantage at any point during the game. However, my opponent accidentally blundered his rook under the dead stare of my dark-squared bishop! This spelt bad news for the black pieces.

Oh no! I was too focused on the threat upon my queen and completely missed the very obvious winning idea!

This will serve as an instructive and memorable lesson for me. Next time, I will make sure I won't evacuate my queen too early before double-checking... just in case there're hidden resources or tactics in the seemingly balanced position!

Just to remind you, if I played the winning move during the game, the triple brilliancy would not even be possible! Thus, I will forever be grateful for whatever mistakes, blunders or missed wins I made during this brilliant game!

In this situation, the engine suggestion was to trade the queens off the board as it would lead to a much simpler position. Black would be up a pawn, which might create trouble for me in the endgame.

In this seemingly equal and balanced position, my next move might surprise some of you here! Perhaps even my opponent wasn't expecting a brilliant move... can you find the one and only winning idea?

A brilliant exchange sacrifice!! I was flooded by a sudden surge of inspiration but I have no idea how to explain the feeling to you all. I just remembered having a strong urge to line up my queen on black's rooks. However, the annoying knight was stubbornly in the way. Just like that, the idea of sacrificing my rook for the knight in order to clear the path for my queen suddenly occurred to me! 

Once bitten, twice shy! Fortunately, I managed to find this move on the second encounter. My opponent generously gifted me a second chance to redeem myself! Afterwards, both sides would have even material, and therefore very likely to enter a drawn endgame.

Excellent news for me! My opponent took the wrong pawn, which was an understandable move as it attacked the knight and created a passer at the same time. If you don't know what a passer is, you learned a new chess term today! For your information, it is another word for 'passed pawn'. But if you don't know what a passed pawn is... browse its definition on the Internet!

Anyways, another brilliant move was about to happen out of no where! Are you ready? Ready or not, here we go!

Boom!! Suddenly, both my queen and knight were hanging! What's going on? Well, if either piece was captured, believe it or not, it would lead to checkmate!

Coincidentally, my heroic knight was guarding the a5 square, preventing black's queen from reaching out to the rook! Therefore, the only option available for my opponent was retreating the rook to safety.

Another brilliant move! That's two brilliant moves in a row!! If we take a closer look at the current position, my knight was still hanging and my back rank was wide open, vulnerable to perpetual checks from black's queen. However, my amazing knight was safeguarding the a1 square, preventing the queen from giving perpetual checks!

If either the rook or the knight was captured, both scenarios would lead to a devastating checkmate on the back rank! Why not we proceed and see how black reacted to this brilliant move?

A great resourceful idea from my opponent! Sadly, my knight was couldn't control the a3 square at the same time, leaving it open for black's queen to protect and support the rook from a distance.

For a brief moment, I thought I had this game! I attempted to use my passive knight to interfere with the queen's defence on the rook, but failed to consider the possibility of perpetual checks from my opponent. At this point, the game was absolutely drawn as perpetual checks were inevitable.

If only my opponent were to play the straightforward move Qc1+, the game would be over really soon as follow-up checks would always be available. Although Qa1+ may be the top engine move, from a human's perspective however, it can hardly be considered as the best move as it would not lead to perpetual checks. Hence, the game would go on for some time.

In order to save the game, my opponent proceeded to direct checks at my king, leaving me with no choice but to temporarily block the impending checks with my g-pawn. Even though black was up a pawn, my vicious attack on the back rank was incredibly powerful and unstoppable.

My opponent blundered! I hope this proves why Qc1+ was the only best move! This move seriously weakened the 7th and 8th rank, as well as opening a pathway for my queen to threaten checkmate on g7! But first, I would have to bring my knight over...

Which I did! I was proud of myself for finding this move under time pressure. My fearless knight became the ultimate hero of this game as it delivered the finishing blow. Checkmate was threatened on both the f8 and g7 squares, and my opponent had no good way to defend both.

Either my opponent missed the checkmate on g7, or he has already given up. Anyways, I was seriously low on time so I didn't have time to savour the moment. Just imagine if I missed Mate in 1... it would be hilarious!

Before concluding the awesome recap, here's the summary and analysis of the game!

Link to my triple brilliancy game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/64509616255?tab=analysis

Crossing the 2100 rating barrier in blitz

By the way, I purposely created this blog in conjunction with achieving a blitz rating of 2100 on January 23, 2023! In fact, it was on the second day of Chinese New Year. Just so you know, it is a festival which the majority of Malaysian Chinese celebrate. 🧧

On January 22, the first day of Chinese New Year, I suddenly had the insight to alter my playing style a little. To be honest, I wasn't expecting my skills and blitz rating to skyrocket in just two days! It was like a miracle for me to win so many games in a row. Well, I guess new year, new me!

On the verge of becoming a 2100 rated player, I was struggling to overcome my strong opponents and my own anxiousness. I was extremely frustrated when I repeatedly reached 2095+ but to fall back down again. In addition, I was really worried about my rating plummeting back to 2000.

Finally, on my third try, I crossed the 2100 rating barrier, which was one of the most challenging goals I've set myself this year. Sometimes, when I was so close to achieving my dream, I tend to mess up the opportunity. Perhaps I was a little overexcited!

Here is the recent update on my rating progress over the past 90 days. You may check it out yourself by clicking on this link: www.chess.com/stats/live/blitz/kdk_fanrepairs1009

May all of you achieve your aims in this auspicious year! I will continue climbing the rating ladder and improve my chess skills in order to better prepare myself for my first ever over-the-board chess tournament in around 3 months' time! Good luck in your games too and I wish to see you again on my upcoming blog!

Do you remember the marvellous hotel room which I mentioned above? It's the first hotel room I've ever visited containing a chess set! Although it's missing some pieces, I conveniently replaced them in order to set up the Acciaccatura Attack line to commemorate this triple brilliancy game! Finally, I will sign out with the hope of becoming a Top Blogger soon as I truly wish to share this blog with the chess community!

P.S. Please check out my previous series on the Acciaccatura Attack! Thank you!!

Peace out!  @KDK_FanRepairs1009

Goodbye!     再见!     さようなら!     Adiós!     Au revoir!