Shirov produced his brilliancy as Black against GM Veselin Topalov at Linares in 1998, and the following opposite-colored bishop endgame was reached after Topalov's 47.Kg1: Black is up material, but what is the path to converting?

Caruana (left) playing Shirov (right) while Carlsen (standing) observes at the 2019 FIDE Grand Swiss. Although GMs Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are ranked numbers one and two in the world (as of September 2020), Shirov still has the best move of all time. Those who haven't seen this move before may be surprised that the sacrifice comes in an endgame, as GM Alexei Shirov is known as one of the greatest attacking players of all time. This move was the second unanimous vote by the Content team and was voted as the best move by several content team members, including 's Director of News, Peter Doggers 's Curriculum Director, NM Jeremy Kane and Director of India, IM Rakesh Kulkarni. The top move on the list will come as little surprise to those who have followed chess for a long time or have seen this move before-it is widely accepted as the single best move of all time. #1 Shirov's Jaw-Dropping Bishop Sacrifice Stockfish doesn't even suggest this move (it finds Marshall's move instantly).The forced checkmates require longer calculations.There are more pieces on the board, which makes the move even more difficult to find.This move looks like an upgraded version of Marshall's legendary move for a few reasons: Luckily for the chess world, he found an amazing combination! With the knight on c3 attacked and Black one move away from consolidation with 18.Bb7, Kholmov needed to find something quickly. Even Stockfish does not see a move that gives White the advantage after Bronstein's 17.Qe7: How did Kholmov shock Bronstein? In the 1964 USSR Championship, GM Ratmir Kholmov had a tough-looking position against the legendary GM David Bronstein. #10 Kholmov's Combination Against BronsteinĬoming in at number 10 is the move voted as the best of all time by ChessKid's Chief Chess Officer, FM Mike Klein (a.k.a. #1 Shirov's Jaw-Dropping Bishop Sacrifice.#8 Edward Lasker's Stunning Queen Sacrifice For Mate.#10 Kholmov's Combination Against Bronstein.Here are the results- the 10 best chess moves of all time: Eventually, we created a strong list of candidate moves, and then the Content team voted. Next we started cutting down the long list-again and again.

We added moves from newer games, and we researched the overlaps. Our original list was created by scouring books, articles, and multiple expert lists. We began in a similar fashion to how a player selects a chess move: The staff created a long list of candidate moves. There are many databases of chess games, and most of these are solely for tournament play-so they inherently and purposefully do not include the overwhelming majority of online games, much less friendly or casual games. So, how do you select the 10 best chess moves of all time? In this one database alone are over 170 million moves. Data taken from the study of the 2015 MegaBase (a database that contains over 4.5 million games) indicates that the average number of moves per game is roughly 38. The number of chess moves made in the history of the royal game is incalculable.

10 opening chess moves