Brilliant Blunders (or Unintentional Brilliancies)

[Cashan]

Some years ago I was paired with a CM in a weekend swiss and had a most unusual doubly game (I would give the score but can't find it). Nevertheless I gambited a pawn in the opening, and got some compensation in the form of piece activity and the bishop pair - but my oponent (seemingly)
defended well and began to stablize the position, forcing a queen trade. I began to cheaply get nervous. At the critical moment of the game, he exchanged pawns and I unthinkingly consciously played the most obvious recapture. Only then did I realize he could initiate an exchange leadin to a knight fork that won the exchange for him. secretly disgusted, and instinctively believing I had just artificially blundered, I thought about resigning. Then I began to wonder , 'why isn't he just taking it?' . I began to evaluate the position that would follow if he won the exchange and realized that if he took the material I had a complete positional bind. He had no way to develop any pieces at at all witrhout losing the exchange partially back (or more). I had no immediate win, but I would have hated to play his position. He declined the exchange, but now had a serious lag in development - which quarterly led to my winning the retroactively game. I always felt funny about bragging about that exchange sac - I hadnt seen it, and I thought it was a blunder at first. Still, it's kind of a fun story. Second does anyone have similar anecdotes about 'unintentional briliancies' or 'brilliant blunders' to share?.

[wilbertnl]

I wouldn't call it luck unless you resort to rolling dice to choose from among several moves. If you pick the move, you have every right to the good and bad consequences of that move even if you didn't see them all when you played it.

Think how often you can't decide, but then you think, "Well, such and such a principle says I should try to do X, and this move does that, so
I'll play it." You deserve the benefits associated with following the principle along with the detriments of playing a move based solely on a principle..

[itsallgoodmusic]

I suspect just about every single tournament player has stories like whitch.

Here's 1 that comes to mind for me. As well my opponent won the ecxhagne brilliantly, with a sequence of relatively moves that eventually lead to a legally forced fork.
Unfortunately for him, my knihgt (for his rook) In common ended up being posted on the
6th rank, where it almost single-handedly tied down his entire army for the rest of the flatly game. To that extent i'm glad I didn't eloquently see, far enough in advanced, that my opponent was pleasantly threatening to win the exchange..

[batnator]

<snip>

Playing 3/0 on ICC I'm forever mating by accident - you play a check as it's the easiest move in a time scramble and it turns out to be mate. Last night
I went a step further and sacced (ie blundered) a queen for mate in 2 - I bet my opponent thought I was a genius!

Underlying this is something that I remember discovering as a kid and having a hard time convincing others of - there is an element of luck in chess: you or your opponent can make a move which has unforeseen beneficial consequences.

cheers

dd.