Providing an insight into the truth behind the famous ‘’Double-Exclamatory’ sign we all admire.
All of you may have heard of ‘Brilliant moves’ or played them in some of your games. For those who do not know what Brilliant moves are, they are moves where a player sacrifices a piece to get a huge lead in material or to force a checkmate. The reason why these moves have had a big impact in the world of chess is because they have made chess difficult and have increased the competitiveness of chess tournaments. There is no specific stage for Brilliant moves to take place; they can be played anytime in chess games.
However, Brilliant moves are usually only played in the Middlegame and Endgame stages as it is extremely difficult to pull out such tricks that take arduous amounts of brainpower to spot, in the Opening. Of course, we are all delighted when we play our first Brilliant move, but finding such moves in other games is hard. That is the purpose of this blog: to provide an insight into this famous ‘double-exclamatory’ sign that we all admire and consider equivalent to a crown of gold. These moves are testimonies to chess brilliance and have long been considered signs of intelligence and uniqueness. I, on my part, have played Brilliant moves too and will be using them as examples as to how we could all go about solving these unique little puzzles chess throws at us.
Firstly, I have with me part of a game that I had played against a 689-rated player when my own rating was 724 (Rapid). I was both down on material and time. However, this brilliant move helped me save the game and score a victory over my opponent.
https://lichess.org/study/HYU4uPjN/JTX27obN
Here, Bxg8+(!!) is the key move. Notice how it has the ‘Brilliant Move’ symbol. That is because I sacrificed, that is, gave my opponent a full bishop and landed a discovered attack on the rook. If the white king captures on g8, I can take the opponent’s free rook and be up 2 points of material, having a winning advantage. My opponent’s king could not escape to any other safe square without leaving his rook undefended as my rook had occupied the e-file. Thus, white could do nothing and had to resign.
That is all for this Chess Insight. I hope this has helped you grasp the importance of brilliant moves and made all of you aware of how to spot brilliant moves in seemingly lost positions. You all can look forward to more blogs like these on various topics such as Endgame Tactics, Openings and Checkmate Attacks, ranging from Beginner to Intermediate levels. Do write in the comments to suggest more ideas for me to write blogs. I hope you can make use of the information I have provided to you to win more games. Lastly, i would like to end this blog with a quote from none other than Grandmaster Mikhail Tal.
“There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones, and mine.”
