| This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves. |
This is a list of world records in the game of chess as achieved in organized tournament, match, or simultaneous exhibition play.
The longest tournament chess game (in terms of moves) ever to be played was Nikolić-Arsović, Belgrade 1989, which lasted for 269 moves and took 20 hours and 15 minutes to complete a drawn game.[1][2] 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 FIDE has since rescinded that modification to the rule.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.[2][3] 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.[4]
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.[2][5] (Fox & James 1993, p. 177) This was repeated in Vassallo-Gamundi, Salamanca 1998.[2] (In a number of other games, White has played on after 3...Qa5+, occasionally even drawing the game.)[6] 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#).[7] Bill Wall lists, in addition to Darling-Wood, three other games that ended with Black checkmating on the second move.[8] 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#.[9] The same game had previously been played in Leeky-Mason, Dublin 1867 (Winter 2003, p. 99).
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 (Brady 1973, pp. 244–45), and Game 5 of the 2006 world championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, which Kramnik defaulted.[10] 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 (Brady 1973, p. 179) (Wade & O'Connell 1973, pp. 344, 410). (An absence of sixty minutes results in a forfeit (Brady 1973, p. 245).)
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.[11] The latter rule was used to forfeit Aleksander Delchev against Stuart Conquest after the move 1.d4 in the 2009 European Team Championship.[12]
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 (Alexander 1973, pp. 80–81). 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.[13]
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.[14] 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 (Whyld 1986, p. 124) (Fox & James 1993, p. 178).
In the Premier I group at the 2003 Capablanca Memorial tournament, Péter Székely took just 130 moves (an average of 10 moves per game) to draw all 13 of his games (Winter 2008).
In Rogoff-Williams, World Junior Championship, Stockholm 1969, the first capture (94.bxc5) occurred on White's 94th move.[2] Filipowicz-Smederevac, Polanica Zdroj 1966 was drawn in 70 moves under the fifty-move rule, without any piece or pawn having been captured (Whyld 1986, p. 124).
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Nuber-Keckeisen, Mengen 1994 lasted 31 moves without a single capture. In the end Keckeisen, facing imminent checkmate, resigned.[15]
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
In December 2005, Reykjavik, 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.[16] As of April 2008[update], the population of Reykjavik had grown to 118,861; Fischer died on January 17, 2008.
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:
(Hooper & Whyld 1992, p. 81) (Soltis 2002, pp. 81–83) (Sunnucks 1970, p. 76).[17]
Perfect scores were achieved in matches by:
(Hooper & Whyld 1992, p. 81).
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 (Fox & James 1993, pp. 17–18) (Kažić 1974, pp. 273–74).
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) (Hooper & Whyld 1992, p. 81) (Kažić 1974, pp. 261–63). 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 (Sergeant 1934, p. 324).
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 (Kažić 1974, pp. 16, 95). Robert Gwaze scored 9-0 on first board for Zimbabwe at the 35th Olympiad (Bled, 2002) (Hook 2008, p. 177). Paul Keres scored 13.5 points out of 14 games (96.4%) playing fourth board for the USSR at the 11th Olympiad (Amsterdam, 1954) (Kažić 1974, p. 56).
Valentina Gunina won the Women's section of the 2010 Moscow Blitz tournament with a 17/17 score.[18]
As of August 19, 2009, John Curdo had won 830 tournaments.[19]
Ortvin Sarapu 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.[20][21]
Gustav Neumann won all 34 of his games at the aforementioned Berlin 1865 tournament (Fox & James 1993, p. 129).
Nicholas Menalaus MacLeod 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 (Chernev 1974, p. 50) (Fox & James 1993, pp. 168–69) (Winter 1996, p. 3). 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 (Fox & James 1993, p. 169) (Whyld 1986, p. 125).
At the Linköping 1969 tournament, Friedrich Sämisch lost all 13 games by exceeding the time control. (Hooper & Whyld 1992, pp. 352–53).
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. (Soltis 2002, p. 42)
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. (Soltis 2002, pp. 43, 73)
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.[22] The streak was broken by Vasily Ivanchuk at Linares 1991, where Kasparov placed 2nd, half a point behind him.[23]
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 Sad tournament, Mikhail Tal had a string of 95 tournament games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws) (Soltis 2002, p. 44) (Tal 1976, p. 500). 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 (Tal 1976).
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.[24]
Thirteen players tied for first with 5-1 scores at the National Open held on March 17-19, 2000 in Las Vegas: grandmasters Jaan Ehlvest, 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. [25]
The highest Elo rating a player has ever received from FIDE, the World Chess Federation, is 2851, which World Champion Garry Kasparov achieved on the July 1999 and January 2000 rating lists.[26][27]
On the July 1972 FIDE rating list, Bobby Fischer's rating of 2785 was 125 points ahead of the second-highest rated player, then-reigning World Champion Boris Spassky (2660).[28] Kasparov's biggest lead at his peak was 82 points in January 2000.[27]
On January 11, 2009, nine-year-old Hetul Shah 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.[29]
In 1922, José Raúl Capablanca, 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. (Damsky 2005, p. 235) (Chernev 1974, p. 8)
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. (Damsky 2005, pp. 247–49) 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. (Soltis 2002, p. 103)
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%) (Kotov 1964, p. 66) (Chernev 1974, p. 110) (Fox & James 1993, pp. 170–71).[30]
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 (Fox & James 1993, pp. 190–91).
Miguel Najdorf 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.[31]
On October 21, 2006, a gigantic multi-simul was organized in El Zócalo, Mexico City'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.[32]
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.[33]