The Best, Biggest and Most Popular Chess Records

Chess records are an enormously fascinating set of facts that should capture the imagination of every chess enthusiast. These exciting achievements reveal to us what is possible in the field of competitive chess. People have managed to break the limits of the game every now and then to set the bar higher and higher with each passage of time.

So, let’s sit back and enjoy the horror chess records which has been established since the time chess was recorded in the annals of history.

For the convenience of our readers, we have divided the chess records part of 10 parts. Each part will cover the significant achievements made in the field of competitive chess over the years. So, without further ado, let’s study the record on the charts!

The ‘Bests’ of Chess Records

The chess player with the best record of success is William Steinitz. He played a total of 27 competitive games from 1862 to 1896 and had a 25-game winning streak. In total, Steinitz achieved victory in 160 chess games, with 70 losses and 57 draws.

The all-time best-selling book on chess is none other than legendary world chess champion Bobby Fischer’s ‘Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess’. This remarkable book has sold more than a million copies since its release worldwide and continues to sell well.

The credit for the best world championship record of all time goes to Vera Menchik-Stevenson. She was the first officially recognized women’s world chess champion and held her title from 1927 until her death in 1944. During her long reign as world champion, Ms. Menchik-Stevenson successfully defended his title 6 times.

In her professional chess career, Ms. Merchik-Stevenson won 78 games, drew 4 games, and lost once.

The ‘Highest’ of Chess Records

The highest chess rating ever recorded is a staggering 3358. This computer rating, recorded on April 5, 2016, was given by the ‘Komodo 9’ chess engine. In contrast, the reigning undisputed world chess champion Magnus Carlsen is rated 2851.

Speaking of the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the chess superstar has recorded the highest Elo chess rating ever achieved by a person – 2882. She reached this peak rating in May 2014. At the other end of the spectrum, the highest a female chess player has scored an Elo rating is 2735. This remarkable world chess champion Judgar achieved in July. 2005.

Former chess champion Bobby Fischer has the highest performance rating in chess at 3080, and he cemented this achievement after defeating Bent Larsen with a score of 6-nil. In the year 2007, another incident happened that came close to what Fischer did.

This time Gata Kamsky got a performance rating of 3047 while competing in the Candidates matches against the Elo 2709-rated Etienne Bacrot. Their competition ended at 30, with Kamsky getting three wins and getting a draw in the fourth game.

Among the female chess masters, it was the sister of Hungarian former world champion Judit Polgar, Sofia Polgar, who tried to get a performance rating of more than 2900 after scoring 8.5 out of a possible 9 in an elite-level tournament in Rome in 1989.

The ‘Greatest’ of Chess Records

The largest public library anywhere in the world is the JW White Collection, which is part of the Cleveland Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. This collection contains more than 32,000 chess books and more than 6,000 issues of bound periodicals. When it comes to the largest private library, that crown is worn by grandmaster (GM) Lothar Schmid. In his personal collection, GM Schmid had at least 20,000 chess books.

The greatest chess tournament of all time took place in 1935-36 in the USSR. At that time the USSR Trade Unions Chess Championship was held. The competition saw participation from 700,000 candidates, a number that is unimaginably large. Then in the UK, the 2004 edition of the UK Chess Challenge for school children witnessed 71,000 children from around 2000 schools taking part in the competition.

This tournament is currently the largest active chess competition on the planet. Two other chess meets worth mentioning here are the US Scholastic Championships of 1985 and the New York Chess Congress of 1973, which hosted 1572 and 1487 chess players, respectively.

It is common knowledge that avid chess players have a habit of collecting all kinds of chess sets. Because of this, it is apt to mention the largest collection of chess sets that a person has gathered under one roof.

This laurel goes to a man named Floyd Sarisohn, who is the proud owner of about 670 chess sets. Mr. Sarisohn has been an avid chess set collector for the past forty years and continues to grow his empire with each passing year.

The ‘Most’ of Chess Records

The record for the most chess games played simultaneously is held by Hungarian chess legend Susan Polgar. In July 2005, Ms. Polgar beat the previous record of 321, held by International Master (IM) Andrew Martin, and competed against 326 contestants simultaneously. He emerged as the winner of 309 matches, drew 14 games, and lost only three. He did all this with a winning percentage of 96.93%.

The most elaborate world chess championship chess match ever played was between former champion Anatoly Karpov and challenger Viktor Korchnoi. The former is considered one of the most dominant chess champions of all time.

At the same time, the latter is widely accepted as one of the strongest chess players who could not reach the absolute pinnacle of professional chess and become a world champion. This memorable encounter happened during the championship meet in 1978 in Baguio City, The Philippines. In the fifth game, both participants played a total of 124 moves to reach a stalemate.

The last entrant in our list of chess records is the tag for the most titles won by a single person. There are a bunch of players we want to talk about here. First, American chess player Arkadijs Strazdinis captured the New Britain, Connecticut Chess Club Championship on 30 different occasions, winning the first in 1952 and the final in 1994.

Second, another American chess player, named John Kalish, is an International Master who won the national championship in Okinawa, Japan, 25 years in a row – from 1959 to 1984. The closest anyone has gotten to this amazing achievement is the Estonian-born New Zealander Ortvin Sarapu. He was crowned New Zealand chess champion 20 times between 1952 and 1990.

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