Unbeaten runs

[Keith Arkell]

I think I made a bit of chess history on Monday.

As far as I can establish, I’m the oldest player ever to complete 100 consecutive unbeaten games in official over-the-board classical chess: 72 wins and 28 draws.

The run began on January 15 2026 - 7 days after my 65th birthday, reaching number 100 on August 24th 2026 - a little over 7 months later.

26% of my opponents were titled players: 5 GMs, 8 IMs and 13 FMs. Against them, I made 9 wins and 17 draws.

I’m very conscious that this is a rather different achievement from Magnus Carlsen’s 125 and Ding Liren’s 100, whose opponents were elite players. Mine have come mainly from Open and Senior events.

The other players to complete 100-game unbeaten runs are Sergey Tiviakov (110), Bogdan Lalic (155!) and Jianchao Zhou (158!).

I’m absolutely delighted - and rather amazed - to have reached 100!

There are more details on my Facebook wall, and also in the ‘Congress Results’ section devoted to my results on this forum.

I’d appreciate any responses being posted here, so that the other section can remain exclusively for future results.

[Geoff Chandler]

Amazing Keith, well done. 100 games without a loss! and your wins well outnumber your draws. 100 games in 221 days. Did you know you were close and went through the nervous 90's.
Of course you do realise that you have now jinxed yourself.
Good Luck and again well done. (By the by, just curious, who was the last person to take a game from you. The last loss on chessgames.com is https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2986918 I was going to add a note saying such but I fear there may be another as that was played in Oct 2025 and your run started in January 2026.)

[Kevin Thurlow]

Well done, and you didn't even need to play me...

[MartinCarpenter]

Very impressive

Down another level, I do wonder what sort of unbeaten runs some amateurs around 21-2200 might have managed. Pre 4NCL, or if not playing it/congresses, they were typically only really threatened in a handful of games a season.

Probably we just don't have databases/electronic results.

[Jonathan Rogers]

It must help if one is largely playing opponents unlikely to have both the ability and confidence to beat you ... even so, an achievement at any age.

Has Nick Pert's long unbeaten run of many years back been forgotten?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The forum never forgets!!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2426&start=30#p48093

Hello,

Sorry that I have been quite slow to respond about a conversation that included me, but I feel I should give my point of view for anyone that is interested!

Firstly many thanks to everyone who has posted positive comments about me. It is very kind of you.

To clarify the facts, my current unbeaten FIDE run is 56 games dating back to the 2008 British Championships. If you include unrated games then my record is well over 100 games, probably about 150 although I have not kept good, up to date records. I guess both must be UK records already.

Actually maintaining an unbeaten run is not my top priority, I am more interested in reaching 2600 (live c.2580), and as a result have been taking far greater risks in my games than usual.

I believe that my unbeaten run is as a result of my playing level increasing, but at the same time not receiving any invites to any top closed tournaments.

At the moment the top 4 (Adams, Short, McShane and Howell) do very well out of tournaments and prize money, and I would guess that all 4 of them would make 10x more than me from chess in an average year - despite the very small rating difference. Look at the London Chess Classic as an example.

In fact I believe that all GMs under 2600 struggle to make good money from playing chess. I am currently 30, and have been in full time employment almost all my post university life. The problem is that it is difficult to focus on improving your game, and earning good money at the same time.

For me, maybe it is now too late to become a World Class Player. I really hope that conditions improve so that players in the future do not suffer the same fate.

If anyone out there is running a well paid closed event (London Classic, Wijk an Zee etc) please invite me!!!!

That was 15 years and 8 months ago(!) - I wonder what Nick's views are now and if they have changed? Or if anything has changed? (Interesting also to compare to what Nikita Vitiugov said in his interview, regarding the 2650+ and 2700+ levels.)

[Roger de Coverly]

That was 15 years and 8 months ago(!) - I wonder what Nick's views are now and if they have changed? Or if anything has changed? (Interesting also to compare to what Nikita Vitiugov said in his interview, regarding the 2650+ and 2700+ levels.)

Isn't Nick mostly a trainer, coach. content author and commentator these days?

https://en.chessbase.com/post/behind-th ... -interview

[Keith Arkell]

Amazing Keith, well done. 100 games without a loss! and your wins well outnumber your draws. 100 games in 221 days. Did you know you were close and went through the nervous 90's.
Of course you do realise that you have now jinxed yourself.
Good Luck and again well done. (By the by, just curious, who was the last person to take a game from you. The last loss on chessgames.com is https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2986918 I was going to add a note saying such but I fear there may be another as that was played in Oct 2025 and your run started in January 2026.)

Cheers Geoff! I was aware, but my priority was to try to win the tournaments.

I can’t remember who the loss was against but it was in Prague and he was quite a bit lower rated than me - maybe about 2130?

It must help if one is largely playing opponents unlikely to have both the ability and confidence to beat you ... even so, an achievement at any age.

I’d struggle to put any kind of run together against players of my own level, Jonathan! Though I did manage to go unbeaten the only time I ever played Hastings Premier, and I was the only player ever to go unbeaten in one of those Watson Farley Williams GM tourneys in London in the late 80s / early 90s.

99 of the (now) 105 games were FIDE rated. I played an unrated opponent in Binz, and Exeter weekender ( where I drew with GM
Nunn and IM Rudd, but won the other 3) was ECF rated only.

[Keith Arkell]

Well done, and you didn't even need to play me...

Cheers Kevin - this must be one of our longest runs without playing each other!

[Geoff Chandler]

I saw Nick's post about his unbeaten streak and out of curiosity looked at chessgames.com.
On there you can see a run of unbeaten games stretching from 2008 to 2011.
The loss in 2008 and the loss which broke the C.G. run in 2011 was against the same player, Yang-Fan Zhou.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499761 and
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1621690
Keith (and anyone else on a winning streak) avoid if you can, playing Yang-Fan Zhou.
C.G. has the last time you met was in 2025 and I'm afraid it was a loss. Good Luck!

[Keith Arkell]

Was it ever established how many games Nick went unbeaten for? I know it was 56 FIDE rated games, but how many including unrated games? In those days many weekenders weren’t FIDE rated, nor local league games.
On the subject of local league games I’ve just remembered that there was a game for Totnes which was also not FIDE rated, in my 100+ game run. So there are 7 unrated games in total.

Ah yes I was indeed downed - rather impressively - by Yang-Fan, but was that game really as recently as 2025? It feels like it was yonks ago! Now that I have sneaked past him on the rating lists I guess I’d possibly enter a future encounter with a tad more confidence, although he is bloody strong still!

Speaking of ‘confidence’, and referring again to Jonathan Rogers’ comment that many of my opponents are unlikely to have the ability nor confidence to beat me, I would just add that active top players these days are very aware that the typical ‘175’ graded round 1 weekend open opponents from the 1980s cannot be just brushed aside anymore. These players are significantly stronger than they were back then.

[Geoff Chandler]

Here is the 2025 game Keith ttps://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2884530
It will seem like yonks ago because you play so many games, BTW you doing a run of 100 unbeaten in 201 days must be a record.
You are correct about the middle order players being much stronger these days and when playing you the younger players will be licking their lips at the prospect of picking up a healthy bunch of rating points. They will have worked out on a calculator during their prep how much you are worth.

[Keith Arkell]

You can say that again, Geoff! When I look to see who I am playing the first thing I do is check their age, with trepidation

[James Plaskett]

53... ended by my loss, with White, to IM Erling Mortensen in Gausdal 1982.

I also had an unbeaten run of 49 which was ended by Sasikiran classically outplaying me in a GM event run by Adam Raoof in Hampstead in the late 1990s. Although I did win the event.

[Jonathan Rogers]

....

Speaking of ‘confidence’, and referring again to Jonathan Rogers’ comment that many of my opponents are unlikely to have the ability nor confidence to beat me, I would just add that active top players these days are very aware that the typical ‘175’ graded round 1 weekend open opponents from the 1980s cannot be just brushed aside anymore. These players are significantly stronger than they were back then.

Fair comment. Actually even in the old days there could still be the "wrong" sort of 180 one might play unaware in the early round of a weekend congress.