Gap between games by two players

[John Moore]

John, I wrote mine after seeing Ian’s offering, as I think he was there in 1980! Didn’t see yours until later, but thanks for reminding me that I’m not a GM. Probably never will be.

Sorry Simon!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Are you also limiting it to GMs who generally kept playing, or would, say, Steane get the record if he ever returns and plays a game against a GM of his vintage (or James Howell, Kumaran or the rest of the list of retired GMs)?

I think there was a 23 year gap between Kasparov and Tseshkovsky playing (1981 - 2004).

[Ian Thompson]

How about:

Korchnoi-Zaitsev: USSR ch, 1970 and a Seniors tournament in Russia in 2011

There's also:

Korchnoi-Aleksandrov: 1955 and 2000, but I suspect they were two different Aleksej Aleksandrovs.

[Ian Thompson]

How about:

Korchnoi-Zaitsev: USSR ch, 1970 and a Seniors tournament in Russia in 2011

Beaten by:

Fridrik Olafsson-Gaprindashvili: 1964 and 2007

[Matt Mackenzie]

Korchnoi-Aleksandrov: 1955 and 2000, but I suspect they were two different Aleksej Aleksandrovs.

Given that the year 2000 player wasn't even born in 1955, I think that is a pretty safe bet.

[MJMcCready]

I would imagine Lasker has a fair chance of challenging what is posted here.

[John Moore]

Well done to Ian with two sets of opponents with a gap of more than forty years! My record was only thirty-five years with Milan Vidmar-Ossip Bernstein (who for some reason is called Neil Bernstein in my copy of Megabase!) Vidmar and Bernstein played in two of the great tournaments at San Sebastian 1911 and Groningen 1946 but not in between. Bernstein, a fine player, was a lawyer who had long periods out of the game.

Jonathan, I'll stick to games which have actually been played rather than speculating on the return of players long retired. Do you have in mind bringing back a crowd of golden oldies for Barbican?

MJ - all you need to do is find an early opponent of Lasker who played him again towards the end of his career but not in between. Ossip Bernstein (again) would give you twenty years. He played Lasker a few times but not between St Petersburg 1914 and Zurich 1934.

[Jonathan Rogers]

...
Jonathan, I'll stick to games which have actually been played rather than speculating on the return of players long retired. Do you have in mind bringing back a crowd of golden oldies for Barbican?

...

If they are reading, they are very welcome to be in touch with me !

[Ian Thompson]

How about:

Korchnoi-Zaitsev: USSR ch, 1970 and a Seniors tournament in Russia in 2011

Beaten by:

Fridrik Olafsson-Gaprindashvili: 1964 and 2007

Which is beaten by:

Najdorf-Denker: 1948 and 1996

[John Moore]

Ian achieves 48 years - remarkable!

[Tim Harding]

The Najdorf-Denker gap is remarkable, if one can prove they never met in between. Denker was an honorary GM.
I guess we are all going by entries in ChessBase Mega Database or similar, which may not be all-inclusive. The Olafsson-Gaprindashvili is certainly likely to be valid for all-GM meetings, I think, but maybe Korchnoi and Igor Zaitsev had meetings in between.

Following a suggestion above, I took a look at Lasker but there is nobody he met in his late career whom he might have previously met only in the early 20th century. I think the most likely candidate is Sir George Thomas who as a young lad might have taken a board against Lasker in a simul in the 1890s but I have no evidence either way about whether they did play.

If we can drop the GM requirement for a minute, my personal largest gap is 45 years 6 months and 10 days between my two games against Jim Tarjan (who was a GM on the second occasion though of course I wasn't). These games were played on 27 April 1972 (John Donaldson recently sent me the score) and 7 November 2017. Later I played Welsh FM Iolo Jones with only a slightly shorter gap between our two meetings: 3 March 1973 to 8 July 2018. If Iolo had rested himself I would have played instead John Thornton whose only game with me was in 1970 so a new record is still possible if life gets back to near-normal and we meet up in future Seniors events. (Also a few others are still around whom I only played in the early 1970s. For example, I played Ken Norman in 1971 but though we were both at the 2018 World Seniors we didn't get paired.)

There may be still a few people around who played me only in the 1960s (Derek Openshaw?) but unless I ever play English events again I'm not likely to meet them. I don't have many opponent names/game scores from that decade. Is the David Robertson who sometimes posts here the same person as the D.J. Robertson who beat me rather easily in the West Midland Under-16s in 1964?

[JustinHorton]

I was thinking that tournaments like the World Seniors might be the place to look for this kind of thing. Also, and connectedly, Jim Tarjan's a player who retired and then came back to play a bit decades later, and presumably there must be any number of similar individuals. Are there any Soviet retirees (or whatever their circumstances may have been) who returned to serious chess in later years?

[David Sedgwick]

I have played Terry Chapman 8 times in serious play. The most recent of these games was in December 1972, in my 100th and last 1st team match for my school, Whitgift.

It's not inconceivable that some day we might play again.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Are there any Soviet retirees (or whatever their circumstances may have been) who returned to serious chess in later years?

There are certainly some, but struggling to think of many *GM*s who would fit that criteria.

(not least because several very strong Soviet players failed to get that title, but very likely would have if they played elsewhere)

[Nick Grey]

On Ecf I believe that Ken Inwood will have the longest gap. I will make a phone call.