Long, Long Chess Games

[Wayne Komer]

What are the most moves you have ever played in an otb chess game?

In the modern tournament era, Tim Krabbé gives Nikolic-Arsovic, Belgrade 1989 at 269 moves and Fressinet-Kosteniuk, Villandry 2007 (rapid play) at 237 moves as records.

http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm

The long games that used to be quoted are:

Stepak-Maschian, Israeli Champ. Semi-finals 1980 – 193 moves, Pilnik-Czerniak, Mar del Plata, 1950-191 moves, Best-Bensinger, Munich 1934 – 181 moves, Franzen-Hauser, Trnava 1982-176 moves, Makogonov-Chekhover, Baku 1945-171 moves, Wolf-Duras, Karlsbad 1907-168 moves, Janowsky-Duras, San Sebastian 1911-161 moves and Lipschutz-Bird, New York 1889-159 moves

The Book of Chess Lists (1st ed) Andy Soltis (1984)
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With the long games you get numbers of moves but rarely the human drama.

Today’s ChessBase, under the title of 210-move drama in Kiev, gives the game Neverov-Bogdanovich played in the fifth round of the 2013 Ukrainian Championship in Kiev and says:

26.6.2013 - As we all know, chess can be heart-wrenching and cruel. In "one of the most depressing episodes ever in a GM game" (Malcolm Pein in The Telegraph) White defended the endgame of rook and knight vs rook and knight, a pawn down, for 124 moves. He then defended the ending of rook v rook and knight from move 172 to move 205. And then on move 206 he blundered. As we said: heart-wrenching.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/...ev-260613.aspx

With one round to go in the Championship, Stanislav Bogdanovich shares 7-9th places and Valeriy Neverov languishes in 12th and last place.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Long, Long Chess Games

My longest game was 134 moves. Short compared to the ones above. It happened against IM Z. Krnic at the 1987 New York Open under 2400 in the first round. The round began at 6pm. IM Krnic showed up dressed to the nines with an expensive suit and lots of gold jewellery. Made me feel very humble but determined. The time control was 40 in two hours, and then 20 in one hour repeated ad nauseum. The first 70 moves of the game showed IM Krnic trying to exploit his substantial positional advantage. The rest of the game was rook vs rook and bishop. At the end of the game IM Krnic was dazed and his suit was very rumpled. I went out to greet the sunrise feeling very happy with a draw. I also played the two games that day (back then I had enough energy). IM Krnic, the highest rated seed, withdrew after our epic encounter. One of my best TKO's.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Long, Long Chess Games

I have had games of 100 moves (1/2); 99 (0-1); 98 (1/2); 97 (1-0); 95 (0-1); 94 (0-1); etc.

Most were played in the days of adjournments - such as a 90-move loss to Milan Zagar in the 1968 Canadian Open - 5 hours of play, and two 2-hour adjournment sessions. Gone are the days of hard-fought 9-hour long games - my longest game without a break was a loss (86 moves) to Alex Kuznecov in the 1982 Canadian Open (Vancouver) - started at 6 pm; ended at 3:30 am. (lots of walking and an expensive cab ride to get from UBC to Richmond)

The longest game without a break (in time) I have experienced was Pierre Lemyre vs Kevin Spraggett (Quebec Open, 1979) - an 11.5 hour draw. The first 75 moves are in CanBase, but I think it went on somewhat longer. (White is winning as of move 75, so time/technique may have been a factor in the final result)