Spoiling Your Brilliancy!!

[Al Mirpuri]

You play a competent opponent.

You go down a recognized mainstream opening.

You get a strong middlegame.

You start complications as everything else looks worse.

You win a non-basic endgame.

You feel pleased with yourself.

You analyze your brilliancy with a computer.

You discover you missed a forced win much earlier in the game.

The line you actually took allows a draw.

However, you played inexpertly and actually fell into a forced loss which your opponent thankfully missed.

How are you feeling now?

How good can the game you played be? Do you console yourself with the thought that world champions miss forced wins? Do you just think that you did the best you could in the heat of battle and it was better than the other guy's best?

[asdfasdf32]

I think this has a large parallel to poker, or sports for that matter. You're likely to beat yourself immediately after the victory, feeling it wasn't earned. Later though the money's in the bank or you're heading for the playoffs and the way you won doesn't matter so much.

[Ajezz]

I used to (and sometimes still do) think negatively about these kinds of games too; like the game is spoilt by overlooking some important result-changing line.

But I have been told repeatedly by more competent players than I am that thinking like this is wrong. Focus on the positives. After all, faultless games are very rare, even on GM level.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Al Mirpuri

Do you just think that you did the best you could in the heat of battle and it was better than the other guy's best?

This.

I am not a chess purist. Of course I'd love to play brilliant games, but I realize that my games are pretty weak in terms of "the ideal game of chess" scale. Since the same is true for my opponents, I think it doesn't make much sense to think about this "scale" at all. You don't compare sprinters to cars, do you?

Therefore, I personally evaluate my results on two different scales. First one is the "results" scale, pretty self-explanatory. If I play like crap but score a bunch of points, I will be at least somewhat happy anyway. The second scale is more related to the emotional level, not sure how to exactly call it. "Have fun/play good chess/enjoy the game" scale That is if I lose some games during which I really had fun, enjoyed it immensely and etc., I will be at least somewhat happy.

So for me, in order to reach the optimal results, I need to somehow try to balance out those two scales.

Was this completely off-topic? :O

[TexAg06]

I think YKW said it very well. With the advent of such strong computers, we're all going to have to get over the idea that we're playing a great game. Houdini can pick apart virtually any game. Even with the brilliancies of the past, Houdini can find spots where the victor played a couple inaccuracies. If personal happiness is found through playing ideal chess, that person will be consistently disappointed.

*Semi-related*

I've spoken to a few titled players about this subject, and one in particular was very adamant about it. He said that most GMs and IMs care about results (obviously not 100%, just most) first and foremost. Chess is a competition between two people and the object is to win the game by whatever means necessary. The time for discovering blunders, finding better lines, improving, etc, is during analysis after the game. While the clock is ticking and two players are at the board, you have to find a way to win.

The IM that told me this said he'd be just as happy if he won a game on time when his opponent had a forced mate in 3 as if he played and won a brilliant strategic game. This was a bit of an exaggeration, but his point was that you have to get in the mindset of doing whatever it takes to win and worrying about the rest later. The ones that play chess purely for the art of it are few and far between at the highest levels. Play to win.

***EDIT*** I should note that I'm not saying people who play just for fun or for the artistic aspect are wrong. Whatever makes one happy is a great reason to play the game. My point was simply not to be too hard on yourself when you find your victory is flawed. If you won, the game was a success.

[networth]

I thought this thread was going to be about finding a great attacking combination only to blow it with a mistep or blown endgame. That I've done many times, but I still enjoy the attack I found. I would need to be a whole lot better and more serious to worry about playing computer chess.

[PyramidScheme]

I would say if the computer said anything else ... you should join the World Championship cycle.

[ToTheDeath]

Well Al, what you described in the first part isn't a brilliancy. You don't go from "get a strong middle game" all the way to "start complications as everything else looks worse" unless you made a pretty big error at some point in between. And going from complications to winning a non-basic endgame happens a lot, Fischer once even joked about how you don't get brilliancy prizes for endgames. For those reasons I'd feel totally not surprised when the computer found out I hadn't played a brilliancy.

I have played games that I thought were brilliant which showed themselves flawed on further analysis. However very few games are perfect diamonds- if beauty were common it wouldn't be beautiful. What you described sounds more like a chess struggle, and that's what real chess often looks like. It's perfectly ok to be proud of a game that has errors.

[HorridSludgyBits]

Read Yusupov's chapter on spoiled brilliancies in his and Dvoretsky's book "Attack and Defense." His intro is so hilarious, makes me think he missed his calling as a stand up comedian. It's a fun chapter