World records in chess
Encyclopedia
This is a list of world records in the game of chess
as achieved in organized tournament
, match, or simultaneous exhibition
play.
1989, which lasted for 269 moves and took 20 hours and 15 minutes to complete a drawn
game. At the time this game was played, FIDE had modified the fifty-move rule to allow 100 moves to be played without a piece being captured in a rook and bishop versus rook endgame, the situation in Nikolić versus Arsović. FIDE has since rescinded that modification to the rule.
The longest decisive tournament game is Fressinet
–Kosteniuk
, Villandry
2007, which Kosteniuk won in 237 moves. The last 116 moves were a rook and bishop versus rook ending, as in Nikolić - Arsović. Fressinet could have claimed a draw under the fifty-move rule, but did not do so since neither player was keeping score, it being a rapid chess game. Earlier in the tournament, Korchnoi
had successfully invoked the rule to claim a draw against Fressinet; the arbiters overruled Fressinet's argument that Korchnoi could not do so without keeping score. Fressinet, apparently wanting to be consistent, did not try to claim a draw against Kosteniuk in the same situation.
1998. (In a number of other games, White has played on after 3...Qa5+, occasionally even drawing the game.) Even shorter decisive games have occurred in amateur play, including two-move games ending in Fool's Mate
(1.g4 e5 2.f3?? Qh4# and variants thereof). ChessGames.com
gives a game L. Darling-R. Wood, 1983 (1.g4 e6 2.f4?? Qh4#). Bill Wall lists, in addition to Darling-Wood, three other games that ended with Black checkmating on the second move. In a tournament game at odds
of pawn and move, White delivered checkmate
on move 2: W. Cooke-"R____g", Capetown Chess Club handicap tournament 1908 (remove Black's f-pawn) 1.e4 g5?? 2.Qh5#. The same game had previously been played in Leeky-Mason, Dublin 1867 .
There have been many forfeited games (which could technically be regarded as losses in zero moves), the most notable examples being Game 2 of the 1972 world championship match between Boris Spassky
and Bobby Fischer
, which Fischer defaulted , and Game 5 of the 2006 world championship match
between Vladimir Kramnik
and Veselin Topalov
, which Kramnik defaulted. A game between Fischer and Oscar Panno
, played at the Palma de Mallorca
Interzonal
1970, went 1. c4 resigns. Panno refused to play to protest the organizers' rescheduling of the game to accommodate Fischer's desire not to play on his religion's Sabbath
. Panno was not present when the game was to begin. Fischer waited ten minutes before making his move and went to get Panno to convince him to play. Fifty-two minutes had elapsed on Panno's clock before he came to the board and resigned . (An absence of sixty minutes results in a forfeit .)
Under recently instituted FIDE rules, a player who is late for the beginning of a round loses the game, as does a player whose cellphone makes any sound in the tournament hall. The former rule was used at the 2009 Chinese Championship to forfeit Hou Yifan
for arriving five seconds late for the beginning of a round. The latter rule was used to forfeit Aleksander Delchev
against Stuart Conquest
after the move 1.d4 in the 2009 European Team Championship.
The German grandmaster Robert Hübner
also lost a game without playing any moves. In a World Student Team Championship game played in Graz in 1972, Hübner played one move and offered a draw to Kenneth Rogoff
, who accepted. However, the arbiters insisted that some moves be played, so the players played the following ridiculous game: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Ng1 Bg7 4. Qa4 0-0 5. Qxd7 Qxd7 6. g4 Qxd2+ 7. Kxd2 Nxg4 8. b4 a5 9. a4 Bxa1 10. Bb2 Nc6 11. Bh8 Bg7 12. h4 axb4 draw agreed). The arbiters ruled that both players must apologize and play an actual game at 7 p.m. Rogoff appeared and apologized; Hübner did neither. Hübner's clock was started, and after an hour Rogoff was declared the winner . The young star players Wang Chen and Lu Shanglei
both lost a game in which they had played no moves. They agreed to a draw without play at the 2009 Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Cup International Open Chess Tournament held in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, China. The chief arbiter declared both players to have lost the game.
A game may be drawn
in any number of moves, or even no moves, if the tournament officials (unlike those at Graz and Lishui) do not object. According to ChessGames.com
, in the 1968 Skopje
–Ohrid
tournament Dragoljub Janosevic
and Efim Geller
agreed to a draw without playing any moves. Tony Miles
and Stewart Reuben
did the same thing in the last round of the Luton
1975 tournament, "with the blessing of the controller", in order to assure themselves of first and second places respectively .
took just 130 moves (an average of 10 moves per game) to draw all 13 of his games .
1969, the first capture (94.bxc5) occurred on White's 94th move. Filipowicz-Smederevac, Polanica Zdroj
1966 was drawn in 70 moves under the fifty-move rule, without any piece or pawn having been captured .
, resigned.
Yates v Znosko-Borowski Tunbridge Wells
1927 first capture is on move 40. Game appears in "The Game of Chess" H. Golombek, Penguin, first published 1954, on page 119. The game is only given from move 40 onwards, but the diagram showing position shows all pieces and pawns present.
The game finished:
40. g5 Bxh3 41. f5 hxg5 42. hxg5 Rgg7 43. Rxh3+ Kg8 44. fxg6 Rxg6 45. Nf5 Qd7 46. Rg2 fxg5 47. Rgh2 Bg7 48. Rxh8+ Bxh8
49. Qh5 Rff6 50. Qxh8+ Kf7 51. Rh7+ Resigns
, Iceland
, with eight grandmasters (Jon Arnason, Jóhann Hjartarson
, Margeir Petursson, Fridrik Olafsson, Throstur Thorhallsson, Helgi Gretarsson
, Hannes Stefansson
, and Bobby Fischer
) had a higher percentage of grandmasters
per capita than any other city worldwide; the city of 110,000 had one grandmaster per 13,750 residents. , the population of Reykjavik had grown to 118,861; Fischer died on January 17, 2008.
.
Perfect scores were achieved in matches by:
.
Future grandmaster William Lombardy
is the only player ever to achieve a perfect score in the World Junior Chess Championship
, open to players under the age of 20 as of January 1 in the year of competition. He scored 11-0 at Toronto
1957 .
Vera Menchik
won four consecutive Women's World Chess Championship
tournaments with perfect scores, a total of 45 games (8-0 at Prague
1931, 14-0 at Folkestone
1933, 9-0 at Warsaw
1935, and 14-0 at Stockholm
1937) . She only played 43 of the 45 games, since Harum, the Austrian contestant, was unable to reach Folkestone and thus forfeited all of her games in that double round robin
event .
Alekhine scored 9-0 on first board for France at the 3rd Chess Olympiad
(Hamburg
, 1930), and Dragoljub Čirić
scored 8-0 as second reserve (the sixth player on his team) for Yugoslavia at the 17th Olympiad
(Havana
, 1966), but each played only about half of the possible games . Robert Gwaze
scored 9-0 on first board for Zimbabwe
at the 35th Olympiad
(Bled
, 2002) . Paul Keres
scored 13.5 points out of 14 games (96.4%) playing fourth board for the USSR at the 11th Olympiad
(Amsterdam
, 1954) .
Valentina Gunina
won the Women's section of the 2010 Moscow Blitz tournament with a 17/17 score.
was the winner (12 times) or co-winner (8 times) of the New Zealand Chess Championship
a record 20 times between 1951–52 and 1989-90.
holds the record for the most games lost in a single tournament: he lost 31 games at the Sixth American Chess Congress at New York 1889, while winning six and drawing one . In fairness to MacLeod, he was only 19 and the tournament, a 20-player double-round robin
, was one of the longest tournaments in chess history. The most games lost by a player who lost all of his games in a tournament was by Colonel Moreau. A last-minute substitute for Mikhail Chigorin
at Monte Carlo 1903, Moreau lost all 26 of his games .
1969 tournament, Friedrich Sämisch
lost all 13 games by exceeding the time control
. .
The modern record of 20 consecutive wins is held by Bobby Fischer
. (Some commentators give this as 19, electing not to count Fischer's game against Oscar Panno
, who resigned after Fischer's first move as a protest). Fischer won his last seven games at the 1970 Palma de Mallorca
Interzonal
(including the one-move game against Panno). In the quarter-finals of the Candidates Matches leading to the world championship
, Fischer swept Grandmaster Mark Taimanov 6-0. In the semi-finals, Fischer swept Grandmaster Bent Larsen by the same score. In the Candidates Match final, Fischer beat former World Champion Tigran Petrosian
in the first game before Petrosian snapped the streak by beating Fischer in the second match game.
The record for most consecutive professional tournament victories is held by Garry Kasparov, who placed first or equal first in 15 individual supertournaments, from 1981 to 1990. The streak was broken by Vasily Ivanchuk at Linares
1991, where Kasparov placed 2nd, half a point behind him.
tournament, Mikhail Tal
had a string of 95 tournament games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws) . Tal also has the second-longest unbeaten run in top-level competition. He went unbeaten in 86 games from July 1972, when he lost to Uusi in the tenth round at Viljandi, until April 1973, when he lost to Balashov in round two of the USSR Team Championship in Moscow. This streak included 47 wins and 39 draws .
José Raúl Capablanca
famously went eight years without a loss (1916 to 1924, including his World Chess Championship 1921
victory over Emanuel Lasker
), but this was "only" 63 games.
, Aleksandr Goldin, Alexander Baburin
, Pavel Blatny, Eduard Gufeld
, Yuri Shulman, Alex Yermolinsky
, Gregory Kaidanov
, Dmitry Gurevich
, Alexander Stripunsky, and Gregory Serper
, and International Masters Rade Milovanovic and Levon Altounian.
achieved on the July 1999 and January 2000 rating lists.
's rating of 2785 was 125 points ahead of the second-highest rated player, then-reigning World Champion Boris Spassky
(2660). Kasparov's biggest lead at his peak was 82 points in January 2000.
of India became the youngest player to defeat a grandmaster in a tournament game at standard time controls when he beat Grandmaster Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazhakstan at the 7th Parsvnath International Open in New Delhi
, India.
, the recently crowned World Champion, played 103 opponents simultaneously in Cleveland
. He completed the exhibition in seven hours, scoring 102 wins and one draw (99.5%), the best result ever in a simultaneous exhibition on over 75 boards.
The best result in a simultaneous exhibition solely against grandmasters is World Champion Garry Kasparov
's performance against a West German
team consisting of Vlastimil Hort
, Eric Lobron
, Matthias Wahls, and Gerald Hertneck at Baden-Baden
in 1992. Unusually for simultaneous exhibitions, half of the players (Lobron and Hertneck) played White. Kasparov beat Lobron and Wahls, and drew the other two players, for a 3-1 victory. Before the term "grandmaster" was in common usage or had an established meaning, Paul Morphy
gave an arguably even more impressive exhibition. On April 26, 1859, at London's St. James Chess Club, Morphy played "five games simultaneously against a group of masters who could be described as among the top ten players of the day", scoring 3-2. He defeated Jules Arnous de Rivière
and Henry Bird, drew Samuel Boden
and Johann Löwenthal
, and lost only to Thomas Wilson Barnes
.
The worst result in a simultaneous exhibition given by a master occurred in 1951, when International Master Robert Wade
gave a simultaneous exhibition against 30 Russian schoolboys, aged 14 and under. After 7 hours of play, Wade had lost 20 games and drew the remaining 10 (16.7%) .
The absolute worst result in a simultaneous exhibition was two wins and 18 losses (10%) by Joe Hayden, aged 17, in August 1977. Hayden wanted to set an American record by playing 180 people simultaneously at a shopping center in Cardiff, NJ
, but only 20 showed up to play. Hayden lost 18 of the games (including one to a seven-year-old). His two wins were scored against his mother and a player who got tired of waiting and left in mid-game, thus forfeiting the game .
played against 45 opponents in a simultaneous blindfold
exhibition given at Sao Paulo
in 1947, winning 39, losing 2 and drawing 4 games (after a similar display in Rosario, Argentina, in 1943, against 40 players). Later Janos Flesch
(52 games) claimed to have broken this record, but his exhibition was not properly monitored and so it was not recognized.
's central square. About 600 masters played against 20 to 25 opponents each. The total number of players was 13,446 according to the authorities. The tables were arranged in squares of different colors, each containing seven simuls. The square resembled in this way a giant chessboard. Anatoly Karpov
was a guest at the event but did not play in the simuls as he was busy signing 1951 copies of his latest book. The Guinness Book of Records acknowledged the event as the largest one held in a single day.
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
as achieved in organized tournament
Chess tournament
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among serious players.Today, the most recognized chess...
, match, or simultaneous exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
play.
Longest game
The longest tournament chess game (in terms of moves) ever to be played was Nikolić-Arsović, BelgradeBelgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
1989, which lasted for 269 moves and took 20 hours and 15 minutes to complete a drawn
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
game. At the time this game was played, FIDE had modified the fifty-move rule to allow 100 moves to be played without a piece being captured in a rook and bishop versus rook endgame, the situation in Nikolić versus Arsović. FIDE has since rescinded that modification to the rule.
The longest decisive tournament game is Fressinet
Laurent Fressinet
Laurent Fressinet is a French chess Grandmaster. He is married to Almira Skripchenko.In October 2011 he tied for 3rd-15th in the open section of the 15th Corsican Circuit.-External links:*...
–Kosteniuk
Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.-Chess career:Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father...
, Villandry
Villandry
Villandry is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. The Château de Villandry is located there....
2007, which Kosteniuk won in 237 moves. The last 116 moves were a rook and bishop versus rook ending, as in Nikolić - Arsović. Fressinet could have claimed a draw under the fifty-move rule, but did not do so since neither player was keeping score, it being a rapid chess game. Earlier in the tournament, Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
had successfully invoked the rule to claim a draw against Fressinet; the arbiters overruled Fressinet's argument that Korchnoi could not do so without keeping score. Fressinet, apparently wanting to be consistent, did not try to claim a draw against Kosteniuk in the same situation.
Shortest game
The shortest decisive game ever played in master play that was decided because of the position on the board (i.e. not because of a forfeit or protest) is Z. Đorđević - M. Kovačević, Bela Crkva 1984. It lasted only three moves (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c6 3.e3?? Qa5+ winning the bishop), and White resigned. This was repeated in Vassallo-Gamundi, SalamancaSalamanca
Salamanca is a city in western Spain, in the community of Castile and León. Because it is known for its beautiful buildings and urban environment, the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. It is the most important university city in Spain and is known for its contributions to...
1998. (In a number of other games, White has played on after 3...Qa5+, occasionally even drawing the game.) Even shorter decisive games have occurred in amateur play, including two-move games ending in Fool's Mate
Fool's mate
Fool's Mate, also known as the Two-Move Checkmate, is the quickest possible checkmate in the game of chess. A prime example consists of the moves:leading to the position shown...
(1.g4 e5 2.f3?? Qh4# and variants thereof). ChessGames.com
Chessgames.com
ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...
gives a game L. Darling-R. Wood, 1983 (1.g4 e6 2.f4?? Qh4#). Bill Wall lists, in addition to Darling-Wood, three other games that ended with Black checkmating on the second move. In a tournament game at odds
Chess handicap
A handicap in chess is a way to enable a weaker player to have a chance of winning against a stronger one. There are many kinds of such handicaps, such as material odds, extra moves A handicap (or "odds") in chess is a way to enable a weaker player to have a chance of winning against a stronger...
of pawn and move, White delivered checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
on move 2: W. Cooke-"R____g", Capetown Chess Club handicap tournament 1908 (remove Black's f-pawn) 1.e4 g5?? 2.Qh5#. The same game had previously been played in Leeky-Mason, Dublin 1867 .
There have been many forfeited games (which could technically be regarded as losses in zero moves), the most notable examples being Game 2 of the 1972 world championship match between Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
and Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
, which Fischer defaulted , and Game 5 of the 2006 world championship match
FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a chess match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The match, which was won by Kramnik, determined the undisputed World Chess Champion for the first time in 13 years...
between Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
and Veselin Topalov
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. He currently has the sixth highest rating in the world, and was the challenger facing world champion Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2010, losing the match 6½–5½....
, which Kramnik defaulted. A game between Fischer and Oscar Panno
Oscar Panno
Oscar R. Panno is an Argentine chess Grandmaster.Panno won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1953, and also won the championship of Argentina the same year....
, played at the Palma de Mallorca
Palma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
1970, went 1. c4 resigns. Panno refused to play to protest the organizers' rescheduling of the game to accommodate Fischer's desire not to play on his religion's Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
. Panno was not present when the game was to begin. Fischer waited ten minutes before making his move and went to get Panno to convince him to play. Fifty-two minutes had elapsed on Panno's clock before he came to the board and resigned . (An absence of sixty minutes results in a forfeit .)
Under recently instituted FIDE rules, a player who is late for the beginning of a round loses the game, as does a player whose cellphone makes any sound in the tournament hall. The former rule was used at the 2009 Chinese Championship to forfeit Hou Yifan
Hou Yifan
Hou Yifan is a Chinese chess prodigy. She is the reigning Women's World Chess Champion, the youngest ever to win the title, as well as the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of Grandmaster.At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the FIDE Women's...
for arriving five seconds late for the beginning of a round. The latter rule was used to forfeit Aleksander Delchev
Aleksander Delchev
Aleksander Delchev is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. He won the Bulgarian Chess Championship in 1994, 1996 and 2001. He participated in five Chess Olympiads with a performance of 60.4% ....
against Stuart Conquest
Stuart Conquest
Stuart Conquest is an English chess Grandmaster.-Chess career:In 1981, at the age of 14 he won the World Youth Chess Championship in the under-16 category. Conquest was British Rapidplay Chess Champion in 1997...
after the move 1.d4 in the 2009 European Team Championship.
The German grandmaster Robert Hübner
Robert Hübner
Robert Hübner is a respected German chess Grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist . At eighteen, he was joint winner of the West German Chess Championship...
also lost a game without playing any moves. In a World Student Team Championship game played in Graz in 1972, Hübner played one move and offered a draw to Kenneth Rogoff
Kenneth Rogoff
Kenneth Saul "Ken" Rogoff is currently the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is also a chess Grandmaster.-Early life:...
, who accepted. However, the arbiters insisted that some moves be played, so the players played the following ridiculous game: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Ng1 Bg7 4. Qa4 0-0 5. Qxd7 Qxd7 6. g4 Qxd2+ 7. Kxd2 Nxg4 8. b4 a5 9. a4 Bxa1 10. Bb2 Nc6 11. Bh8 Bg7 12. h4 axb4 draw agreed). The arbiters ruled that both players must apologize and play an actual game at 7 p.m. Rogoff appeared and apologized; Hübner did neither. Hübner's clock was started, and after an hour Rogoff was declared the winner . The young star players Wang Chen and Lu Shanglei
Lu Shanglei
Lu Shanglei is a Chinese Chess Grandmaster, who is the Number One rated Under-16 chessplayer in Asia and the Number Five rated chessplayer in that age group in the world....
both lost a game in which they had played no moves. They agreed to a draw without play at the 2009 Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Cup International Open Chess Tournament held in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, China. The chief arbiter declared both players to have lost the game.
A game may be drawn
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
in any number of moves, or even no moves, if the tournament officials (unlike those at Graz and Lishui) do not object. According to ChessGames.com
Chessgames.com
ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...
, in the 1968 Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
–Ohrid
Ohrid
Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Republic of Macedonia. It has about 42,000 inhabitants, making it the seventh largest city in the country. The city is the seat of Ohrid Municipality. Ohrid is notable for having once had 365 churches, one for each day of the year and has...
tournament Dragoljub Janosevic
Dragoljub Janoševic
Dragoljub Janošević was a Yugoslav chess Grandmaster.-Background:Janošević became an International Master in 1964 and earned the Grandmaster title the following year....
and Efim Geller
Efim Geller
Efim Petrovich Geller was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions...
agreed to a draw without playing any moves. Tony Miles
Tony Miles
Anthony John Miles was an English chess Grandmaster.- Early achievements in chess :Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...
and Stewart Reuben
Stewart Reuben
Stewart Reuben is a British chess player, organiser and arbiter. He has officiated at and/or organised a number of high-level chess events held in Britain and elsewhere, including the world chess championship, and was chief organiser of British Chess Championship Congresses for a number of years...
did the same thing in the last round of the Luton
Luton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
1975 tournament, "with the blessing of the controller", in order to assure themselves of first and second places respectively .
Fewest moves played in a tournament
In the Premier I group at the 2003 Capablanca Memorial tournament, Péter SzékelyPeter Szekely
Peter Szekely was a Hungarian chess Grandmaster.In the 2003 Capablanca Memorial tournament he drew all 13 of his games, the shortest in 8 moves and the longest in 13 for a total of 130 moves played.-External links:...
took just 130 moves (an average of 10 moves per game) to draw all 13 of his games .
Latest first capture
In Rogoff-Williams, World Junior Championship, StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
1969, the first capture (94.bxc5) occurred on White's 94th move. Filipowicz-Smederevac, Polanica Zdroj
Polanica Zdrój
Polanica-Zdrój is a town in Kłodzko County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland.It lies approximately south-west of Kłodzko, and south-west of the regional capital Wrocław...
1966 was drawn in 70 moves under the fifty-move rule, without any piece or pawn having been captured .
Longest decisive game without a capture
Nuber-Keckeisen, Mengen 1994 lasted 31 moves without a single capture. In the end Keckeisen, facing imminent checkmateCheckmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
, resigned.
Yates v Znosko-Borowski Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in west Kent, England, about south-east of central London by road, by rail. The town is close to the border of the county of East Sussex...
1927 first capture is on move 40. Game appears in "The Game of Chess" H. Golombek, Penguin, first published 1954, on page 119. The game is only given from move 40 onwards, but the diagram showing position shows all pieces and pawns present.
The game finished:
40. g5 Bxh3 41. f5 hxg5 42. hxg5 Rgg7 43. Rxh3+ Kg8 44. fxg6 Rxg6 45. Nf5 Qd7 46. Rg2 fxg5 47. Rgh2 Bg7 48. Rxh8+ Bxh8
49. Qh5 Rff6 50. Qxh8+ Kf7 51. Rh7+ Resigns
Greatest concentration of grandmasters
In December 2005, ReykjavikReykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, with eight grandmasters (Jon Arnason, Jóhann Hjartarson
Johann Hjartarson
Jóhann Hjartarson is a chess Grandmaster from Iceland. He earned the International Master title in 1984 and the Grandmaster title a year later. Among his best international tournament results are equal fourth at Reykjavik 1988 , equal third at Tilburg 1988 and sixth at Belgrade 1989...
, Margeir Petursson, Fridrik Olafsson, Throstur Thorhallsson, Helgi Gretarsson
Helgi Grétarsson
Helgi Dagbjartur Áss Grétarsson is an Icelandic chess grandmaster. Grétarsson won the 1994 World Junior Chess Championship. His current Elo rating is 2462 .-External links:...
, Hannes Stefansson
Hannes Stefansson
Hannes Hlífar Stefánsson is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster. Stefánsson has won the Icelandic Chess Championship every year since 1998 except for 2000 and 2009 when he didn't participate. His 11 titles make him the record holder for most Championships...
, and Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
) had a higher percentage of grandmasters
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
per capita than any other city worldwide; the city of 110,000 had one grandmaster per 13,750 residents. , the population of Reykjavik had grown to 118,861; Fischer died on January 17, 2008.
Perfect tournament and match scores
In top-class chess it is rare for a player to complete a tournament or match with a 100 percent score. This outstanding result was however achieved in tournaments by:- Gustav NeumannGustav NeumannGustav Richard Ludwig Neumann was a German chess master.Neumann was born in Gleiwitz in the Prussian Province of Silesia. In matches he lost to Louis Paulsen at Leipzig 1864, and defeated Celso Golmayo Zúpide , and Simon Winawer at Paris 1867...
at Berlin in 1865 (34/34) - William PollockWilliam Pollock (chess player)William Henry Krause Pollock was an English chess master, and a surgeon.Pollock was born in Cheltenham, England, the son of the Rev. William J. Pollock. He was educated at Clifton College. He studied for the medical profession in Dublin, Ireland from 1880–82, at which time he was a member of the...
at Belfast 1886 (8/8) - Emanuel LaskerEmanuel LaskerEmanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
at New York in 1893 (13/13) - Henry AtkinsHenry Ernest AtkinsHenry Ernest Atkins was a British chess master who is best known for his unparalleled record of winning the British Chess Championship nine times in eleven attempts. He won every year from 1905 to 1911, and again in 1924 and 1925...
at Amsterdam 1899 (15/15) - José Raúl CapablancaJosé Raúl CapablancaJosé Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
at New York in 1913 (13/13, including one default) - David Janowski at Paris in 1914 (9/9)
- Alexander AlekhineAlexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
at Moscow in 1919-20 (11/11) - Boris Kostić at Hastings 1921-22 (7/7); Kostić was the only non-British participant.
- Bobby FischerBobby FischerRobert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
at the US Championship of 1963/64 (11/11) - Alexander BeliavskyAlexander Beliavsky-External links:...
at AlicanteAlicanteAlicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
in 1978 (13/13)
.
Perfect scores were achieved in matches by:
- Howard StauntonHoward StauntonHoward Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...
over Daniel HarrwitzDaniel HarrwitzDaniel Harrwitz was a Jewish German chess master.Harrwitz was born in Breslau in the Prussian Province of Silesia. He established his reputation in Paris, particularly as a player of blindfold games...
in 1846 (7/7) - Wilhelm SteinitzWilhelm SteinitzWilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...
over Joseph Henry BlackburneJoseph Henry BlackburneJoseph Henry Blackburne , nicknamed "The Black Death", dominated British chess during the latter part of the 19th century. He learned the game at the relatively late age of 18 but quickly became a strong player and went on to develop a professional chess career that spanned over 50 years...
in 1876 (7/7) - Capablanca over Kostić in 1919 (5/5)
- Fischer over Mark TaimanovMark TaimanovMark Evgenievich Taimanov is a leading Soviet and Russian chess player and concert pianist.-Chess:He was awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1952 and played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. From 1946 to 1956, he was among the world's top...
in 1971 (6/6) (quarter-final Candidates Match) - Fischer over Bent LarsenBent LarsenJørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess Grandmaster and author. Larsen was known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play and he was the first western player to pose a serious challenge to the Soviet Union's dominance of chess...
in 1971 (6/6) (semi-final Candidates Match)
.
Future grandmaster William Lombardy
William Lombardy
William James Lombardy is an American Grandmaster of chess, writer, teacher, and one-time Catholic priest.- Life and career :...
is the only player ever to achieve a perfect score in the World Junior Chess Championship
World Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament organized by the World Chess Federation ....
, open to players under the age of 20 as of January 1 in the year of competition. He scored 11-0 at Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
1957 .
Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.The daughter of a Czech father...
won four consecutive Women's World Chess Championship
Women's World Chess Championship
The Women's World Chess Championship is played to determine the women's world champion in chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE....
tournaments with perfect scores, a total of 45 games (8-0 at Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
1931, 14-0 at Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
1933, 9-0 at Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
1935, and 14-0 at Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
1937) . She only played 43 of the 45 games, since Harum, the Austrian contestant, was unable to reach Folkestone and thus forfeited all of her games in that double round robin
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
event .
Alekhine scored 9-0 on first board for France at the 3rd Chess Olympiad
3rd Chess Olympiad
The 3rd Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 13 and July 27, 1930, in Hamburg, Germany...
(Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, 1930), and Dragoljub Čirić
Dragoljub Čirić
Dragoljub Miladin Čirić in Novi Sad) is a former Yugoslavian, now Serbian, chess Grandmaster.- Background :Čirić gained the title of International Master in 1961 and became a Grandmaster in 1965....
scored 8-0 as second reserve (the sixth player on his team) for Yugoslavia at the 17th Olympiad
17th Chess Olympiad
The 17th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 23 and November 20, 1966, in Havana, Cuba.-References:* OlimpBase...
(Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, 1966), but each played only about half of the possible games . Robert Gwaze
Robert Gwaze
Robert Gwaze is a Zimbabwean chess player born in Harare, Zimbabwe. He is a former student at Prince Edward High School, in Harare. At age 15 he was a Zimbabwe National Chess Champion at both junior and senior levels....
scored 9-0 on first board for Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
at the 35th Olympiad
35th Chess Olympiad
The 35th Chess Olympiad took place from October 25th to November 11th, 2002, in Bled, . In the men's tournament there were 136 teams, and in the women's, 92 teams...
(Bled
Bled
Bled is a municipality in northwestern Slovenia in the region of Upper Carniola. The area, within the Julian Alps, is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
, 2002) . Paul Keres
Paul Keres
Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....
scored 13.5 points out of 14 games (96.4%) playing fourth board for the USSR at the 11th Olympiad
11th Chess Olympiad
The 11th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between September 4 and September 25, 1954, in Amsterdam, Netherlands...
(Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, 1954) .
Valentina Gunina
Valentina Gunina
Valentina Gunina is a Russian chess player with the titles International Master and Woman Grandmaster . In 2006 and 2008 she won Qualifying Russian Women Chess Championship and 2011 Superfinal Russian Women Chess Championship....
won the Women's section of the 2010 Moscow Blitz tournament with a 17/17 score.
Most wins of a national championship
Ortvin SarapuOrtvin Sarapu
Ortvin Sarapu MBE , sometimes known as "Mr Chess", was a New Zealand chess International Master who won or co-won the New Zealand Chess Championship 20 times between 1952 and 1990.-Early life:Born Ortvin Sarapuu in Estonia, he won the Estonian Junior Championship in 1940, then defected to Finland...
was the winner (12 times) or co-winner (8 times) of the New Zealand Chess Championship
New Zealand Chess Championship
The New Zealand Chess Championship was first conducted in 1879.Note: Up until 1934 foreign players were eligible for the title. The eligibility rules were changed in 1935 to preclude this; John Angus Erskine was born in Invercargill and was therefore eligible although he was domiciled in...
a record 20 times between 1951–52 and 1989-90.
Most games won
Gustav Neumann won all 34 of his games at the aforementioned Berlin 1865 tournament .Most games lost
Nicholas Menalaus MacLeodNicholas MacLeod
Nicholas Menalaus MacLeod was a Scottish–Canadian chess master.He took 6th at Ottawa 1881, tied for 3rd-9th at Quebec 1881/82, took 8th at Glasgow 1884, and finished 5th at Glasgow 1886 .MacLeod won the Canadian Chess Championship in 1886 and 1888, and shared 1st but lost a play-off...
holds the record for the most games lost in a single tournament: he lost 31 games at the Sixth American Chess Congress at New York 1889, while winning six and drawing one . In fairness to MacLeod, he was only 19 and the tournament, a 20-player double-round robin
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
, was one of the longest tournaments in chess history. The most games lost by a player who lost all of his games in a tournament was by Colonel Moreau. A last-minute substitute for Mikhail Chigorin
Mikhail Chigorin
Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin also was a leading Russian chess player...
at Monte Carlo 1903, Moreau lost all 26 of his games .
Lost all games on time
At the LinköpingLinköping
Linköping is a city in southern middle Sweden, with 104 232 inhabitants in 2010. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality with 146 736 inhabitants and the capital of Östergötland County...
1969 tournament, Friedrich Sämisch
Friedrich Sämisch
Friedrich Sämisch was a German chess grandmaster .-Main results:* 2nd at Berlin 1920...
lost all 13 games by exceeding the time control
Time control
A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. Time controls are typically enforced by means of a game clock...
. .
Consecutive wins
Steinitz won his last 16 games at Vienna 1873, including a two-game playoff against Blackburne at the end. He played no serious chess until an 1876 match against Blackburne that Steinitz swept 7-0. After a long period of inactivity, Steinitz played at Vienna 1882, where he won his first two games before finally ending his winning streak with a draw. Steinitz's 25-game winning streak over nine years has never been equalled.The modern record of 20 consecutive wins is held by Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
. (Some commentators give this as 19, electing not to count Fischer's game against Oscar Panno
Oscar Panno
Oscar R. Panno is an Argentine chess Grandmaster.Panno won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1953, and also won the championship of Argentina the same year....
, who resigned after Fischer's first move as a protest). Fischer won his last seven games at the 1970 Palma de Mallorca
Palma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
(including the one-move game against Panno). In the quarter-finals of the Candidates Matches leading to the world championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
, Fischer swept Grandmaster Mark Taimanov 6-0. In the semi-finals, Fischer swept Grandmaster Bent Larsen by the same score. In the Candidates Match final, Fischer beat former World Champion Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...
in the first game before Petrosian snapped the streak by beating Fischer in the second match game.
The record for most consecutive professional tournament victories is held by Garry Kasparov, who placed first or equal first in 15 individual supertournaments, from 1981 to 1990. The streak was broken by Vasily Ivanchuk at Linares
Linares chess tournament
The Linares International Chess Tournament , is an annual chess tournament, usually played around the end of February, takes its name from the city of Linares in the Jaén province of Andalusia, Spain, in which it is held...
1991, where Kasparov placed 2nd, half a point behind him.
Consecutive games without a loss
Between October 23, 1973, when he lost a game in a Soviet championship, and October 16, 1974, when he lost to Kirov at the Novi SadNovi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
tournament, Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
had a string of 95 tournament games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws) . Tal also has the second-longest unbeaten run in top-level competition. He went unbeaten in 86 games from July 1972, when he lost to Uusi in the tenth round at Viljandi, until April 1973, when he lost to Balashov in round two of the USSR Team Championship in Moscow. This streak included 47 wins and 39 draws .
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
famously went eight years without a loss (1916 to 1924, including his World Chess Championship 1921
World Chess Championship 1921
The 1921 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker. It was played in Capablanca's native Havana from March 18 to April 28...
victory over Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
), but this was "only" 63 games.
Largest tie for first
Thirteen players tied for first with 5-1 scores at the National Open held on March 17-19, 2000 in Las Vegas: grandmasters Jaan EhlvestJaan Ehlvest
Jaan Ehlvest Jaan Ehlvest Jaan Ehlvest (born 14 October 1962 is a chess player, who was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1987 and was named Estonian sportsman of the year in 1987 and 1989...
, Aleksandr Goldin, Alexander Baburin
Alexander Baburin
Alexander Baburin is a Russian-Irish International Grandmaster of chess...
, Pavel Blatny, Eduard Gufeld
Eduard Gufeld
Eduard Yefimovich Gufeld was a Soviet International Grandmaster of chess, and a chess author.By the late 1950s he established himself as one of the strongest players in the world...
, Yuri Shulman, Alex Yermolinsky
Alex Yermolinsky
Alex Yermolinsky is an American chess Grandmaster. In 1993, Yermolinsky won the U.S. Chess Championship, tying for first place with Alexander Shabalov...
, Gregory Kaidanov
Gregory Kaidanov
Gregory Kaidanov is a Grandmaster of chess.As of April 2007, his Elo rating was 2587, making him the #9 player in the US and the 179th-highest rated player in the world. His peak rating was 2646 in 2002....
, Dmitry Gurevich
Dmitry Gurevich
Dmitry Gurevich is a Russian-American chess grandmaster.Gurevich emigrated to New York in 1980 and earned the grandmaster title three years later. Dmitry has won the U.S. Open three times . Also, Gurevich has had especially good results at the National Open in Las Vegas, sharing first place on...
, Alexander Stripunsky, and Gregory Serper
Gregory Serper
Gregory Serper is an International Grandmaster of chess.He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union . At age 6, he learned to play chess from his grandfather...
, and International Masters Rade Milovanovic and Levon Altounian.
Highest rating
The highest Elo rating a player has ever received from FIDE, the World Chess Federation, is 2851, which World Champion Garry KasparovGarry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
achieved on the July 1999 and January 2000 rating lists.
Largest rating lead
On the July 1972 FIDE rating list, Bobby FischerBobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
's rating of 2785 was 125 points ahead of the second-highest rated player, then-reigning World Champion Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
(2660). Kasparov's biggest lead at his peak was 82 points in January 2000.
Youngest player to defeat a grandmaster
On January 11, 2009, nine-year-old Hetul ShahHetul Shah
Shah Hetul is an Indian chess player.At the age of nine, Hetul Shah became the youngest person to beat a grandmaster in chess at a standard time control when he beat Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan, on 11 January 2009 at the seventh Parsvnath International Open chess tournament in round one...
of India became the youngest player to defeat a grandmaster in a tournament game at standard time controls when he beat Grandmaster Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazhakstan at the 7th Parsvnath International Open in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, India.
Best and worst results in simultaneous exhibitions
In 1922, José Raúl CapablancaJosé Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
, the recently crowned World Champion, played 103 opponents simultaneously in Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
. He completed the exhibition in seven hours, scoring 102 wins and one draw (99.5%), the best result ever in a simultaneous exhibition on over 75 boards.
The best result in a simultaneous exhibition solely against grandmasters is World Champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
's performance against a West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
team consisting of Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort is a chess Grandmaster of Czech nationality. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship, but was never able to compete for the actual title.Hort was born in Kladno,...
, Eric Lobron
Eric Lobron
Eric Lobron is a German chess player of American descent. A former two-time national champion, he has been awarded the title Grandmaster by the World Chess Federation ....
, Matthias Wahls, and Gerald Hertneck at Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
in 1992. Unusually for simultaneous exhibitions, half of the players (Lobron and Hertneck) played White. Kasparov beat Lobron and Wahls, and drew the other two players, for a 3-1 victory. Before the term "grandmaster" was in common usage or had an established meaning, Paul Morphy
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and an unofficial World Chess Champion. He was a chess prodigy...
gave an arguably even more impressive exhibition. On April 26, 1859, at London's St. James Chess Club, Morphy played "five games simultaneously against a group of masters who could be described as among the top ten players of the day", scoring 3-2. He defeated Jules Arnous de Rivière
Jules Arnous de Rivière
Jules Arnous de Rivière was the strongest French chess player from the late 1850s through the late 1870s. He is best known today for playing many games with Paul Morphy when the American champion visited Paris in 1858 and 1863.Born in Nantes to a French father and an English mother as...
and Henry Bird, drew Samuel Boden
Samuel Boden
Samuel Standidge Boden was an English professional chess master.The mating pattern "Boden's Mate" was named after the mate that occurred in one of his games, Schulder-Boden, London 1853....
and Johann Löwenthal
Johann Löwenthal
Johann Jacob Löwenthal was a professional chess master.Löwenthal was born in Budapest, the son of a Jewish merchant. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native city. In 1846, he won a match against Carl Hamppe in Vienna...
, and lost only to Thomas Wilson Barnes
Thomas Wilson Barnes
Thomas Wilson Barnes was an English chess master, one of the leading British masters at the time of Paul Morphy's visit to the UK in 1858....
.
The worst result in a simultaneous exhibition given by a master occurred in 1951, when International Master Robert Wade
Robert Wade (chess player)
Robert Graham Wade OBE , was a British chess player, writer, arbiter, coach, and promoter. He was New Zealand champion three times, British champion twice, and played in seven Chess Olympiads and one Interzonal tournament...
gave a simultaneous exhibition against 30 Russian schoolboys, aged 14 and under. After 7 hours of play, Wade had lost 20 games and drew the remaining 10 (16.7%) .
The absolute worst result in a simultaneous exhibition was two wins and 18 losses (10%) by Joe Hayden, aged 17, in August 1977. Hayden wanted to set an American record by playing 180 people simultaneously at a shopping center in Cardiff, NJ
Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey
Egg Harbor Township is a township in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 43,323, a growth of more than 40% since the previous enumeration....
, but only 20 showed up to play. Hayden lost 18 of the games (including one to a seven-year-old). His two wins were scored against his mother and a player who got tired of waiting and left in mid-game, thus forfeiting the game .
Most games in blindfold exhibitions
Miguel NajdorfMiguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....
played against 45 opponents in a simultaneous blindfold
Blindfold chess
Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces...
exhibition given at Sao Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
in 1947, winning 39, losing 2 and drawing 4 games (after a similar display in Rosario, Argentina, in 1943, against 40 players). Later Janos Flesch
János Flesch
János Flesch was a chess Grandmaster, chess writer and coach, born in Budapest, Hungary. He is best known for claiming a world record simultaneous blindfold exhibition when he played 52 opponents in Budapest in 1960...
(52 games) claimed to have broken this record, but his exhibition was not properly monitored and so it was not recognized.
Most players taking part to a multi-simul
On October 21, 2006, a gigantic multi-simul was organized in El Zócalo, Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
's central square. About 600 masters played against 20 to 25 opponents each. The total number of players was 13,446 according to the authorities. The tables were arranged in squares of different colors, each containing seven simuls. The square resembled in this way a giant chessboard. Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
was a guest at the event but did not play in the simuls as he was busy signing 1951 copies of his latest book. The Guinness Book of Records acknowledged the event as the largest one held in a single day.
Most simultaneous games
On February 8-9, 2011, Iranian grandmaster Ehsan Ghaem-Maghami achieved the Guinness world record for most simultaneous chess games. He played for 25 hours against 604 players, winning 580 (97.35%) of the games, drawing 16, and losing 8.See also
- List of youngest grandmasters
- Chess librariesChess librariesChess libraries are library collections of books and periodicals on the game of chess.Chess has a very extensive literature, probably exceeding that of all other games combined....
External links
- Tim Krabbé's chess records page
- Free Open World and Local Records (see Games->Chess)
- Guinness Chess Records in Mexico City
- The Aesthetics of Task Problems
- http://www.worldrecordsinformation.com