My Most Beautiful Combination

I think every chess player enjoys chess partly because they are drawn to the beauty of chess. Similarly, in playing chess, we all hope to create aesthetic games, combinations, and ideas like those that have survived in various chess anthologies through the ages.

In chess, we are fortunate that the beauty of a combination is not limited by the skill of the player. In most other competitive sports (football, tennis, baseball, etc.), the beauty of a pattern is limited by the player's skill. I can never hope to produce a tennis serve that is as aesthetic as Roddick's. As a chess player though, I can create combinations that are every bit as beautiful as Carlsen's or Kasparov's. Tactical anthologies are littered with examples of tactics from the games of relative unknowns (ususally NN) who have produced their own immortal piece of chess beauty.

I would like to present a short combination from one of my own games that strikes me as quite beautiful. It has been a couple of years since I played this game, but I still have a fond and vibrant memory of executing the combination on the board. Note that alternative variations and comments are available via the move list.