Best Move vs. Great Move

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Avatar of ChessUnicorn_CN

Which chess move is better. I know that brilliant move is the best, but now jus forget the brilliant. Just compare best and great, both are top engine moves, but I can't distinguish which is a better matter of move. Thx~~~happy

Avatar of KeSetoKaiba

I think the order is: Brilliant, Great, then Best.

It's weird wording because typically a Brilliant or Great move is also the best move in that position.

When you play a Great move (!), it's not that it's better than "best" or worse than "brilliant", but has to do with the other moves in the position. I tend to find that Great moves are usually moves where it's the ONLY winning move and it was found. I've also noticed that Great moves are occasionally when it's much superior to the second best move. I'm sure there's some centipawn threshold to determine which evaluation to give, but I'm not a computer coding person.

Avatar of ChessUnicorn_CN
KeSetoKaiba wrote:

I think the order is: Brilliant, Great, then Best.

It's weird wording because typically a Brilliant or Great move is also the best move in that position.

When you play a Great move (!), it's not that it's better than "best" or worse than "brilliant", but has to do with the other moves in the position. I tend to find that Great moves are usually moves where it's the ONLY winning move and it was found. I've also noticed that Great moves are occasionally when it's much superior to the second best move. I'm sure there's some centipawn threshold to determine which evaluation to give, but I'm not a computer coding person.

i know u, u had add my other account, FattyAcidCaptainHook, remember?

Avatar of Fr3nchToastCrunch

Best: the best move in the position.

Great: the only move in a position that does not lose (or, in a winning position, draw).

Brilliant (OTB): a winning move that's simultaneously extremely strong and counterintuitive, and almost always looks like a blunder at first glance.

Brilliant (Chess.com): literally any piece sacrifice that's not objectively bad...😴

Avatar of Steve-K

It seems to me that the practical effect of a lot of these moves depends heavily on what the opponent does. For example, in my most recent game I made a Bishop sacrifice attempt capturing a pawn screening the King which the game review rated as either an inaccuracy or even a mistake (different reviews of the same game made different evaluations of the move). But the opponent didn't take the Bishop and made a Knight move that actually made his position worse. A few moves later he resigned rather than be checkmated. The practical effect of the "mistake" was much the same as many "brilliant" moves though best play by the opponent might have meant the move weakened my position.