My (Former) Brilliant Moves Record

I still remember hunting for my first game with two brilliant moves. There was a way to get unlimited game reviews on mobile. I don't know whether it was intentional, or not. It wasn't quite the premium version, it wouldn't save for example, but it did show brillians - all I cared about. That day I'd used my daily review already, so I had to resort to the free version. To my surprise, it awarded me 2 brilliants. I was really happy, but my excitement didn't last long.

The next day, I ran the same game through the daily rewiev. Not only did it say I hadn't play 2 brilliant moves, in fact I didn't play any. And to add insult to injury, it awarded my opponent one.

My first 3-brilliant game came from a crazy rook tactic. It felt a little like cheating, not really earned, but since then I played many games with 3 brilliants, even one against my friend.

When I played my first 3-brilliant game I was still below 2000 chess.com rapid. I peaked 2380 this year, so like 250-300 elo improvement on lichess, and untill yesterday, I never got 4 brilliants. I did have couple games with multiple sacrifaces, some (two I think) even with 4 top engine sacrifaces, but I was never awarded more than three.

That said, I have played 3 games, with 4 brilliant moves total. And before we get to consuming today's main dish, let's look at these 3 games.

Equal distribution

For context, my opponent played the Tartakower Caro-Kann, and I played my Qd3 line. I got a better position out of the opening, but failed to capitalize at critical moment. As a result of that, I found myself in a worse position, hoping for my attack to save me.

A crazy sequence of moves, resulting in a draw. Sadly, I missed the critical Qh7+ and lost the game. Game link.

Heart breaking

Now instead of me attacking and losing, I'll be on the reciving end of an attack. And I am still going to lose.

Average e6 sicilian game. Btw recently I started dabbling in the Sicilian, and right know, I think I like the 4 knights best. Game link.

Psycho game

This game combines an insane sequence of only moves from first game, and attacking down material from the second. Put on a second seatbelt!

Even though my opponent didn't play correctly, and went Nxg5, the position is hard to handle for Black, and I blunder right back with b6 and Be7.

We reach the most critical moment of the game, where after Ncxe6 I'm cooked on the light-squares. As you can guess, that didn't happen, as there would be no room for the last brilliant. Instead my opponent took the rook. Now it's time for the longest series of back-to-back only moves (for both colors) I ever played.

Insane squence no? 4 only moves, a recapture, and another 8! And with correct play (Qd7 Kxa8) it would be 10!

This very alien game is pretty typical for the Bg4 line. Really, if you are lacking a weapon against the Caro, look into it! Game link.

Main dish

And now it's time, for the main event - my brilliant record. It's kinda funny, that I was never able to get 4 brilliant moves, but I just got 5 brilliants.

I should play Bd5 saving my LSB. After that Qh5-Qg6 is deadly. Sadly (or not, as this game wouldn't happen) I played Ne4 messing up my notes. From a completely winning position, I go to much worse, if not losing.

But I still have kingside counterplay. The game is far from over.

Honestly, I still can't believe it's real. Like I've seen many games, and analysed many variatons, where an absurd amount of brilliant happens, but they always were others' games, or simply variaitons, that would never happen in a real game. And now it did happen, it's real. I played 5 brilliant moves. FIVE. I'm obviously very happy, but I feel like I can't really comprehend how insane that is. I can't really explain it any better. Game link.

Thank you for reading

I hope I inspired you to play a game like this yourself, the same way I get inspired seeing a video on one of Tal's games, or watching Witty_Alien casually get 4 brilliants against a titled player. I also hope you enjoyed the post.

I'm working on part 3 of beating the London System, this time the Jobava, but I found another interesting line, which I have played a grand total of 0 times, so it might take a while for me to learn and understand it.