I'm down in the (rating) drains, slowly making my way back. It's been a bad couple of weeks... just idiotic behavior of yours truly—utterly unworthy of the excellence of 1500+ chess.com rating I've bragged about on SN before (#935981, #853488).
Sometimes things just die (SN, bitcoin, den's chess rating...#900000), and I can't really explain why performance is so bad. My knowledge and understanding of chess doesn't move -200 points between Tuesday and Wednesday so... why does it?!
I know, I know, margins are slim as fuck (over long periods of time I only win about 2-5% more games than I lose... so by randomness there are going to be streaks that are just abyssmal), but still. It's incomprehensible.
Anyway, today I spotted the WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL tactic/mate: When chess.com made it's click-checkmate sound, I started laughing (and then obvs sent the game to everyone I know). It's both good and bad news.
A few moves before the main event, right about here...
...I assessed that my knight was in a decent position; that my queen had fast access to the c-file (and c7); and that I could take the stupid knight on h6 (damaging opponent's pawn structure) any time I wanted. Also saw that my knight move set up the bishop attacking the queen via f4. Felt good about myself.
...then my opponent pushed the c6 pawn to attack my knight and I saw, in an instant, that attacking the queen with the bishop from f4 was still possible (superseding concepts; danger levels... you attack my knight, I attack your queen...). I played that move in less than 1 second, pure intuition (good news) rather than calculation (bad news).
Opponent moved queen out of the way... and I during the four seconds before I played the next move I went "OK, queen threat gone; return to dealing with the attack on my knight. Hm, b6 is a check, and I can always take the bishop on d7 if I need to escape."
play the move; checkmate; checks notes, WHAT THA FUCK?!
HA-HA-HA-hAAAAAAAAAA.
Yeah, did not realize that, but it's UNBELIEVABLY PRETTY when you see it.
Computer analysis already says I'm totally winning after black overlooked this threat, and that black has to give up the queen (in one way or another; top engine move is to take the knight on d5 and let me capture the queen with the bishop — two pieces for a queen). I will probably go on to win easily, especially with an open c-file and my pieces quickly swarming his king. Still, what a wonderful move. Very happy.
I just retire from chess now, right?
Nothing beats that. Drops mic.