Chess Records
Here are a some records about chess:
ACTIVE, MOST -In 1995 Robert Smeltzer played 2,266 USCF rated games in one year, the most ever.
BLINDFOLD, MOST GAMES - Janos Flesch played 52 opponents blindfold simultaneously in Budapest, 1960.
BRIEFEST WORLD CHAMPION - Mikhail Tal was the briefest world champion of one year and five days.
CHAMPION, OLDEST - In 1968 Harlow Daly won the championship of Maine at the age if 85.
CHAMPION, YOUNGEST - Arturo Pomar won the championship of the Balearic Islands at the age of 11. Niaz Murshed won the championship of Bangladesh at the age of 12, the youngest person to win a national championship. Henrique Mecking was the champion of Brazil at 13. In 1948 Kit Crittenden won the North Carolina state championship at the age of 13, becoming America's youngest state champion.
GRANDMASTERS, MOST - In 1989 the Belgrade Open had 98 Grandmasters participating in its tournament, the most ever in one event.
GRANDMASTER, OLDEST - Esteban Canal of Peru received an honorary Grandmaster title at the age of 81.
GRANDMASTER, YOUNGEST - The youngest International Grandmaster is Peter Leko, who became a GM at the age of 14 years, 4 months, 22 days in 1994. He beat Judit Polgar (born July 25, 1976) who qualified as the world's youngest International Grandmaster on December 20, 1991, aged 15 years, 148 days. Bobby Fischer became a Grandmaster at the age of 15 years, 6 months.
LONGEST WORLD CHAMPION - Emanuel Lasker was world champion for 26 years, 337 days.
MARATHON - In 1983 Roger Long and Graham Croft played chess non-stop for 200 hours in Bristol, England.
MASTER, LOSS - In 1993 Irina Krush, age 9, defeated a master rated 2257, the youngest person ever to defeat a master in a rated game. In 1978 Neil Carr, age 10, became the youngest player to beat a grandmaster in a simultaneous exhibition.
MASTER, OLDEST - In 1991, B. Friend became a master for the first time at the age of 71.
MASTER, YOUNGEST - Vinay Bhat of San Jose, California became America's youngest master in 1995 at the age of 10 years, 176 days. He beat Jordy Mont-Reynaud of Stanford, California who became the youngest master at age 10 years, 209 days in Feb, 1994. Other young masters have been Stuwart Rachels at 11 years, 10 months, Ilya Gurevich at age 12 years, 3 months, John Jarecki at age 12 years, 6 months, and Jon Litvinchuk at age 12 years, 7 months. Etienne Bacrot of France became the youngest FIDE master at age 10.
MATCH, LONGEST - The longest annual match in chess is the Cambridge-Oxford match. The traditional series began in 1873.
MOST MOVES - The master game with the most moves on record was one of 269 moves between Ivan Nikolic and Goran Arsovic. The game ended in a draw during a Belgrade tournament on Feb 17, 1989. The game lasted 20 hours, 15 minutes. Prior to this game, the longest tournament game was Martinovsky-Jansa, Gausdal 1987, which drew after 194 moves. The longest decisive game was 193 moves when Stepak defeated Mashian after 24 1/2 hours of play in Israel, 1980.
MOST MOVES, WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP GAME - The longest world championship game is 124 moves, the 5th game of the 1978 Korchnoi-Karpov match in Merano, Italy (it ended in stalemate).
MOST OPPONENTS - Vlastimil Hort played 663 consecutive games over 32 1/2 hours at Porz, Germany on Oct 5-6, 1984. He also played 201 games simultaneously in Iceland on Apr 23-24, 1977. Eric Knoppert of the Netherlands played 500 games of 10-minute chess in September, 1985. He played for 68 straight hours.
OLDEST CHESS PIECES - The oldest pieces identified as chess pieces were found at Nashipur, dated 900 AD. The Lewis chess pieces found on the Isle of Lewis dates back to 1150.
PLAYERS, MOST - The 1973 New York Chess Congress had 1,487 chess players entered. In 1985 the U.S. scholastic championships drew a record 1,572 players.
RATING, HIGHEST - The highest rating attained on the officially adopted Elo or FIDE system is 2810, by Garry Kasparov in 1994 (his highest Professional Chess Association rating was 2814). The highest-rated woman player is Judit Polgar, rated 2675 and ranked 7th in the world of all chessplayers. John Penquite achieved the highest USCF postal rating of 2939 in 1992 after winning 58 straight postal games. The highest USCF rating attained is 2825, by Bobby Fischer in 1972. The highest rated chess computer is Deep Blue II, rated at 2705. Anatoly Karpov achieved the highest performance rating of 2985 at Linares 1994 after scoring 11 out of 13 against the world's best players.
SIMULTANEOUS GAMES, MOST - Podzielny played 575 simultaneous games in 30 1.2 hours. At the 1966 Havana chess olympiad, several masters participated in a simultaneous exhibition of 6,480 boards.
SLOWEST MOVE - The slowest move played was when Francisco Trois took 2 hours and 20 minutes for his 7th move against Luis Santos at Vigo, Spain in 1980.
STREAKS - Bill Martz played 104 consequtive USCF rated games without a loss.
TOURNAMENT, STRONGEST - The strongest tournament ever was the Linares 1994 tournament, with an average rating of 2685.
TOURNAMENT, WINNERS - John Kalish has won the championship of Okinawa 25 consecutive times. I. Larsen won the Danish women's championship a record 17 times. Sarapu won the New Zealand championship 16 times.
WORLD CHAMPION, OLDEST - Wilhelm Steinitz was 58 years, 10 days when he lost his title to Emanuel Lasker on May 26, 1894.
WORLD CHAMPION, YOUNGEST - Garry Kasparov became the world's youngest world champion when he won the title on Nov 9, 1985 at age 22 years, 210 days.