I don't have many brilliancies to brag about. Most of my good games
have been blitz or bullet, and I have not kept any records. Instead
I would like to show a couple of positions where I missed the most elegant
move. I am sure that there are many more, and in time I may use a computer
chess program (which I do not have at present) to go over my old games.
This
position was reached in 1964 in a club tournament game with V. Lepamets
playing white. Lepamets was a dangerous attacking player, so I had chosen
to give him some of his own medicine: attack at all costs. I had sacrificed
a pawn, then the exchange, then a piece, and finally yet another piece
(declined), and was a full rook behind in material.
Here I played Rg8-e8, and white was forced to give up
his queen to avoid being mated. His open king, disconnected rooks, bad
bishop and poor pawn structure eventually led to his defeat.
In hindsight, a much more elegant move for black would
have been f4-f3! It is a surprisingly quiet move in this position, with
no threat of check or capture from the pawn, but it threatens both Qe1
and Rg1 with back-rank mate. The desperate Bb2 fails to Rg1 followed
by Qg6. Qd3 runs into Qg4 (Ke1, Qg1, Qf1, Re8). The only defense seems
to be Qd8, and again white is forced to surrender his queen. Objectively,
f4-f3 may not be any stronger than Rg8-e8, but it certainly is much
more appealing!
The next position is from an open tournament in Jönköping
in 1973. My opponent M. Gustafsson had gotten a very cramped position
as black.
I
decided to press on with h2-h4 as my next move.
The game did not last long after the black queen munched
my poisoned pawn on d4 a few moves later and quickly got trapped.
However, there is a much stronger move than h4 in this
position, and it is blindingly obvious. I should have played Ne5xf7!
If black takes with the king, he loses his queen to Ng5 followed by
Nxe6. If he does not, Qc7 is forced. Bf4 follows, forcing e5, and white
gains at least a second pawn.