Our 64 most memorable moves

A few days ago, I played through Games 101–145 from the updated edition of ***The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games***(2019) (thanks Nick Visel for the study).
The 1998 edition (with 100 games) was one of the most influential books in my chess life, and playing through the new games reminded me how inspiring beautiful moves and ideas can be.

It also got me thinking about the memorable moves we’ve played ourselves.

They might not ever make it into a book of the greatest chess games in history, but that doesn’t make them any less special to us.

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The bad and... the good

Back in February, I invited readers to share their most memorable blunders.

This time, let’s celebrate the other side.

I’d like to collect 64 memorable moves from our own games.

They don’t have to be brilliancies or even objectively strong moves. Maybe it’s a move that saved a hopeless position or one that won you an important game.
The important thing is why you remember it.

Here’s one of mine.

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My most memorable move

In 2018, I went on a months-long trip playing in a series of tournaments overseas: the Teplice Open (Czechia), Paracin Open and Orbis GM (Serbia), Biel Masters (Switzerland), Abu Dhabi Masters (UAE), and my last stop was in Malaysia. This was Round 2.

Me (2419)–FM Cabe (2250), Malaysian Open 2018
Playing the Fianchetto Variation as White against the King’s Indian Defence, we got to this middlegame position. My pieces are on decent squares, but it’s not clear what my plan should be. Black’s just played 17...Rb8-b2, threatening my pawn on a2.

The pawn is hard to defend: even if I play 18.a3, Black can keep attacking it with 18...Rb3. So rather than defend it, I thought about improving my rook with 18.Rfe1. But although it attacks e7, Black has it defended well enough.

Then I saw another point to 18.Rfe1, and I could feel my pulse quicken. I played it, and walked away from the board so I wouldn’t have to maintain a poker-face.
I walked around and looked at some of the other games, but I was only thinking about my game. Would my opponent see it?

I was watching from a few aisles away when he played his move. He had taken on a2, just as I’d hoped.

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Can you find the move I played?

I sat down, probably already a bit red in the face from anticipation, and started calculating. I quadruple-checked every line five times. My heart was beating out of my chest, I could hear its echo. I’ve only felt like that a few times in 1,750 tournament games over 25 years. Was it really going to work? Was I missing something obvious?

After some minutes, I had no doubts, but it was still terrifying to make the move.

I played 19.Qxf7+, sacrificing my queen.
My opponent was surprised, and took a long time to reply. As a few other players and spectators watched, eventually he declined with 19...Kh8, and I won after 20.Bxe7 Qb8 21.Bxd6 Rf8 22.Bxf8 Qxf8 23.Re8 1-0.

If he’d taken with 19...Kxf7, I continue 20.Be6+ Kf8 and now, 21.Re4.
Black can defend against Rf4+ or Bh6+ with the bishop, but not both. White will mate in two moves. (21...Qc8 22.Rf4+ Bf6 23.Bh6#, 21...Bf6 22.Bh6+ Bg7 23.Rf4#).

Calculating and playing 19.Qxf7+ was memorable to me because of the way it made me feel: joy, excitement, fear and anxiety all at once, from playing a queen sacrifice with a mating motif that I hadn’t seen before.

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Now it’s your turn

I’d love to see a move from one of your games that you’ll never forget, or one that you’re very proud of. It could be a brilliant move, a gutsy bluff, an unexpected trick or a cute quiet move.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or what rating you have, or whether the engine awarded your move two exclamation marks. I’m interested in what made it memorable to you.

The world's greatest chess games have been collected in books for generations. I thought it would be fun to make a little collection of our own.

Share your move and I’ll add it to the public Lichess study, Our 64 Most Memorable Moves.

You can submit it by:

• Leaving a comment below with a game link, PGN or FEN.
• Replying directly to this email with your game or position.

Tell me which move you’d like to feature, and a little about why it means something to you. I’ll put them all together so we can enjoy each other’s favourite chess moments, and perhaps discover a few beautiful moves we’d never have seen otherwise.

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being