Is This A Record?

[Tim Spanton]

In one of my games at Hampstead over the weekend, White made six consecutive moves in the opening with the same piece.
The game is here: https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2020/02/ ... ecord.html
Unfortunately I have been unable to find anything on the internet to confirm or deny a record.

[JustinHorton]

I don't have a refutation of this claim, but for what it's worth, I was thinking that two likely places to look for such a thing were

(a) an early king hunt with a queen delivering a lot of checks
(b) a desperado sequence with a knight hopping around.

Anyway I looked up desperado on Wikipedia and it gives a game Bogolubow v Schmid in which moves 5 to 9 are played solely by White's queen's knight and Black's king's knight.

So what, you may ask, that's only five moves. Indeed it is, but I notice that had the position been reached not by a Four Knights move order (3 Nc3 Nf6 4 d4 exd4) but via the Scotch (3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6) then the Black knight would indeed have played six consecutive moves, and I wonder whether that particular sequence has ever been played.

[Tim Spanton]

Hmm. Interesting. Maybe Berkley - Spanton will have to settle for six consecutive moves with the same piece in the opening and none of them a capture …

https://beauchess.blogspot.com/

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I am sure this record could be matched, if not broken. Desperadoes and king hunts seem the right way to go. What about desperadoes where pawns promote in the corner after taking a rook - if a pawn has promoted, is it the same piece?

[Tim Spanton]

I am sure this record could be matched, if not broken. Desperadoes and king hunts seem the right way to go. What about desperadoes where pawns promote in the corner after taking a rook - if a pawn has promoted, is it the same piece?

Definitely not! For starters, a pawn isn't even a piece …

(Also, don't forget I am asking about consecutive moves in the opening)

[Angus French]

I think Tim's question might be answered - at least partially - using a Chess Query Language query against an established and comprehensive database of games. I'd do this myself but am pressed for time at the moment.

[Tim Spanton]

I think Tim's question might be answered - at least partially - using a Chess Query Language query against an established and comprehensive database of games. I'd do this myself but am pressed for time at the moment.

I fear that is beyond me, even if CQL could manage it (and I am not sure it could).

[John McKenna]

Pan the technicals, guys!

By using mainly one's noodle - souped up with a quick search - it can easily be discovered that...

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.c5 Nd5 5.Bc4 Nf4 6.Qf3 Ne6...

has been seen at least twice before and is obviously a model answer to Tim's question.

[Tim Spanton]

Pan the technicals, guys!

By using mainly one's noodle - souped up with a quick search - it can easily be discovered that...

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.c5 Nd5 5.Bc4 Nf4 6.Qf3 Ne6...

has been seen at least twice before and is obviously a model answer to Tim's question.

OK, then maybe Berkley - Spanton will have to settle for tying a record for six consecutive moves with the same piece in the opening and none of them a capture …

[Angus French]

I think Tim's question might be answered - at least partially - using a Chess Query Language query against an established and comprehensive database of games. I'd do this myself but am pressed for time at the moment.

I fear that is beyond me, even if CQL could manage it (and I am not sure it could).

Actually I'm not so sure either. Are there any CQL users out there who could say? (I'm intrigued by CQL - it seems both expressive and arcane.)

[soheil_hooshdaran]

I think Tim's question might be answered - at least partially - using a Chess Query Language query against an established and comprehensive database of games. I'd do this myself but am pressed for time at the moment.

Excuse me, got a question.

Is CQL simiilar to SQL? where is the database? if It is online What port does it use to connect? is it TCP/IP based? Is there relational tables?

[Angus French]

I think Tim's question might be answered - at least partially - using a Chess Query Language query against an established and comprehensive database of games. I'd do this myself but am pressed for time at the moment.

Excuse me, got a question.

Is CQL simiilar to SQL? where is the database? if It is online What port does it use to connect? is it TCP/IP based? Is there relational tables?

CQL is like SQL in the sense that it's for querying databases... Er, you'd need to download the program (in Windows or Mac form) and it works against locally-stored chess databases, in .PGN format - check out the link above for more information.

[John McKenna]

Pan the technicals, guys!

By using mainly one's noodle - souped up with a quick search - it can easily be discovered that...

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.c5 Nd5 5.Bc4 Nf4 6.Qf3 Ne6...

has been seen at least twice before and is obviously a model answer to Tim's question.

OK, then maybe Berkley - Spanton will have to settle for tying a record for six consecutive moves with the same piece in the opening and none of them a capture …

Extract from your annotations to the game in your blog -

... 15.Nd5 b6
I partly played this, rather than, for example, 15...Bd6, in the hope White would reply 16.Nxe7+, making it seven consecutive moves with the same piece.

A bit of wishful thinking there then.

In the blog post you make no comment on your six corresponding replies. If 16.Nxe7 had been played would you have gained 6 tempi and gone on to win?

Were you been mesmerised by that prancing knight?

Could you have played it better if you'd not talked yourself into playing 15... b6 with thoughts of a possible chess record?

[Tim Spanton]

A lot of 'if' questions!
I certainly could have played it differently, but 15...b6 seemed to me to be the fun way to play, and anyway was a reasonable move. The real problems with my play came later.

https://beauchess.blogspot.com/

[Angus French]

In one of my games at Hampstead over the weekend, White made six consecutive moves in the opening with the same piece.
The game is here: https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2020/02/ ... ecord.html
Unfortunately I have been unable to find anything on the internet to confirm or deny a record.

Would the game below - with 13 consecutive moves made by the same piece, starting on move 10 - count?
[Event "Wch U10"] [Site "Warsaw"] [Date "1991.??.??"] [Round "5"] [White "Rousev, R."] [Black "Dziurdzia, D."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C64"] [EventCountry "POL"] [EventDate "1991.08.??"] [EventRounds "11"] [EventType "swiss"] [PlyCount "100"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "1996.11.15"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 f5 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. Nxe5 Qh4 7. O-O fxe4 8. g3 Qh3 9. Re1 Bxf2+ 10. Kxf2 Qxh2+ 11. Ke3 Qxg3+ 12. Kxe4 Nf6+ 13. Kd4 Qf4+ 14. Kd3 Bf5+ 15. Ke2 Qh2+ 16. Kf3 Qh3+ 17. Ke2 Qg2+ 18. Ke3 Nd5+ 19. Kd4 Qf2+ 20. Kc4 Nb6+ 21. Kb3 Be6+ 22. Kc2 O-O-O 23. Qe2 Bf5+ 24. Kd1 Qxe2+ 25. Rxe2 Rhe8 26. Ke1 Rd6 27. d4 Rde6 28. Bf4 Bg4 29. Rg2 h5 30. Kd2 Rf6 31. Be3 g6 32. Na3 Nd5 33. Re1 Bf5 34. Rf2 Ref8 35. Bh6 Re8 36. Ref1 c5 37. Bg7 Rb6 38. Nac4 Ra6 39. a3 cxd4 40. cxd4 Re7 41. Bh6 b5 42. Ne3 Nxe3 43. Bxe3 Rd6 44. Kc3 a6 45. Bg5 Re8 46. Re2 Rde6 47. Rfe1 Kb7 48. b4 c6 49. Kd2 Kc7 50. Bf4 Kb7 1-0

(To find the above game I wrote a program in Python using python-chess. The program finds games in a .pgn database which have 7 or more consecutive moves made by the same piece with the sequence starting before move 11. Qualifying games (numbering 106) from a search against the first 1,000,000 games in my main games database are here.)