Guinness Chess World Records

 

The world’s largest chess piece is a king piece in front of the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis.  It is 20 feet tall and 9 feet in diameter.  It is 53 times larger than a standard Staunton chess king. 

The oldest chess master was Hungarian-Canadian master Zoltan Sarosy (1906-2017) who was 110 years, 300 days when he died.  He won the Canadian Correspondence Chess Championship in 1967, 1972, and 1981.  He was still actively playing chess at the age of 107. 

The oldest pieces identified as chess pieces were found at Nashipur, India, datable to 800 AD. 

The largest collection of chess sets consists of 438 items, owned by Tumen-Ulzii Zandraa of Mongolia.

On Jan 29, 2016, the Russian State Social University hosted the largest chess lesson with 250 students and pupils.  The 30-minute lesson was about William Steinitz with a demonstration of his chess games. 

On Sep 20, 2018, the largest chess lesson had 1,459 participants taught by two Muttenz, Switzerland, chess clubs ato the school children in the area. 

On Nov 11, 2018, the longest chess marathon was achieved by Hallvard Haug Flateba and Sjur Ferkingstad, both of Norway.  They played chess for 56 hours, 8 minutes, and 37 seconds.

The smallest chess computer program has only 354 bytes, programmed by Alejandro Garcia of Spain.

The largest chess set is located at Medicine Hat, Alberta.  The chess board measures 19 feet, 4 inches each side.  The king is 47 inches tall.

The smallest handmade chess set measures 8 mm by 8 mm, made by Ara Davadi Ghazaryan of Los Angeles.  The king is 2.4 mm tall and the pawns ar 1 mm tall.

The smallest machine-made chess set was created by students at Texas Tech University.  It measures 435 micrometers on each side.

On Aug 1, 2019, Nakul Ramaswamy set up a chess board in 31.55 seconds in Simsbury, Connecticut.

In March 2021, David Rush of Idaho was able to set up chess pieces on a chess board with one hand in 30.31 seconds.

On July 20, 2021, S. Odelia Jasmine of India set a Guinness World Record for the fastest time to arrange a chess set with one hand.  She arranged a chess set on a chess board in 29.85 seconds.  She practiced a year before attempting the world record. 

On July 1, 2022, Jeet Trivedi of India arranged a chess set blindfolded in 1 minutes, 2.19 seconds. 

On October 28, 2018, Nurzat Turdaliev set up a large chess set in 46.62 seconds at a shopping center in Moscow. 

On March 26, 2022, a team of two arranged a chess set in 30.80 seconds in Tokyo.  It was achieved by Silhashi and Matezon.

The most expensive chess pieces sold at auction is an attributed “Lewis Chessmen” piece, which sold for $930,415 at Sotheby’s in London on July 2, 2019. 

On June 3-4, 2013, Olle Widell and Evin Bergtsson, both from Sweden, played chess under water for 25 hours and 14 minutes in Gothenburg, Sweden.

On January 30, 2004, the largest networked chess computer called ChessBrain played a game of chess wih GM Peter Heinne Nielsen and drew in 34 moves.  ChessBrain consisted of 2,070 computers located in 56 countries. 

The shortest game ever registered between two masters, was 4 moves.  Lazard defeated Gibaud in a chess café in Paris in 1924.  

In auto chess, players recruit armies to fight on a grid-shaped battlefield.  The first auto chess video game was Dota Auto Chess, released in January 2019. 

On Aug 12, 2002, Sergey Karjakin became the youngest grandmaster at 12 years and 212 days. 

On Aug 29, 2008, Hou Yifan became the youngest female grandmaster at 14 years, 184 days. 

In 1950, the most moves in a chess game up to that time was 191 moves, played by Pilnik – Czerniak at Mar del Plata.

In 1989, the most moves in a chess game, 269, was played between Ivan Nikolic and Goran Arsovic in Belgrade.  The game lasted 20 hours, 15 minutes.

On Nov 24, 2010, a total of 20,483 competitors played chess in Ahmedabad, India.

The youngest women’s blitz world chess champion is Bibissara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan, born Feb 26, 2004.  She won it at the age of 17 years 307 days in Warsaw, Poland on Dec 30, 2021. 

In 2005, 13,500 players appeared in Santa Maria, Cuba for the largest simul exhibition of chess. 

In 2006, a simultaneous exhibition with 14,000 participants took place in Mexico City.  It was the most chess games played in simultaneous exhibitions in the same place.

Anatoly Karpov signed almost 1,951 copies of the book Karpov, el camino de una voluntad.  He broke the record of signing the most autographs during a chess event.  He stopped after 6 hours.  He was very tired and his hand was in pain.

In Dec 2016, GM Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents simultaneously, while blindfolded.  The exhibition lasted 18 hours.