English Chess Forum

How long have you gone unbeaten? I have lost one game since returning to chess, competitive games that is. 12 games in all.

Warren Kingston wrote:How long have you gone unbeaten? I have lost one game since returning to chess, competitive games that is. 12 games in all.

I think mine is around that figure. I suspect others have much longer unbeaten runs. Tal had some ridiculous figure, holding the two highest records for this feat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal

"From July 1972 to April 1973, Tal played a record 86 consecutive games without a loss (47 wins and 39 draws). Between October 23, 1973 and October 16, 1974, he played 95 consecutive games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws), shattering his previous record. These are the two longest unbeaten streaks in modern chess history."

I don't know if anyone has bothered to work out the longest streak without winning! I suspect most people try and ignore that sort of record, and no-one would be in a hurry to claim it (though some of the 19th century tournament rabbits who played 20+ round tournaments without winning a game might have claim to that record).

I think Capablanca had the longest unbeaten run in terms of time, but didn't play so many games.

If you only count full length games, my best run is 11 - won 8 and drew 2 of my last 10 games of the 2008-09 season, then won my first of 2009-10 and lost the second. If you include all competitive games I can manage 20, since immediately before commencing that run I scored 6/6 in a lightning tournament, then in another at the end of the season I started with 4/4 before losing my last two.

One of my team-mates managed 16 - won his last 2 games in 2005-06 then won 13 and drew 1 in 2006-07. He may have extended that sequence, but he graduated that year and left the club, and I don't know whether he continued to play competitive chess.

I haven't lost since January 2009, but I've only managed to play seventeen games since then (W10 D7 L0) and I think only one person actually outgraded me.

Mark Hebden hasn't lost a game in the Leicestershire league since 1977!!

I had a run of 18 games unbeaten during my first two seasons playing in the Oxfordshire league, after which I lost three of my next four!

At school level I seem to remember I had a remarkable run of 11 straight draws.

Sean, I've never lost a game in the Leicestershire League......

Mike Truran wrote:Sean, I've never lost a game in the Leicestershire League......

Is that a easy league then?

Mike Truran wrote:Sean, I've never lost a game in the Leicestershire League......

Very droll - but Mark has played every year (I think) since '77. Not sure how many games that is, but it's in the hundreds! I think he was on a run of something like 42 wins until a draw in 2008!

Eoin, I see you didn't mention that two of them were against Witney within a week of each other!

From the results website I see that my Frank Wood Shield loss to Georgs Vikanis was in fact slightly earlier than I remembered, so the streak was only 15 unbeaten. In my defence, I have been trying to forget that game as I missed an obvious mate-in-two and went on to lose.

As Mike mentions, since that run I've lost 9, of which 4 have been to Witney players. Perhaps I should stop playing against Witney.

Edit: 3 of them against Bicester as well. Another team to cross off my schedule ...

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Mike Truran wrote:Sean, I've never lost a game in the Leicestershire League......

Very droll - but Mark has played every year (I think) since '77. Not sure how many games that is, but it's in the hundreds! I think he was on a run of something like 42 wins until a draw in 2008!

That's some record, who, was, is his nearest graded player then?

Can anyone here match my 11 straight draws? Even more remarkable was the fact that these all came within about two weeks of each other, with 5 at the Millfield International school tournament and then 6 at the BDCL U18 rapidplay just a couple of weeks later.

My results following this run - several draws and losses in the Kent Schools' League and an incredibly poor 0/6 in a local rapidplay - gave me the highly dubious record of not winning a single game for about 11 months.

Eoin Devane wrote:Can anyone here match my 11 straight draws? Even more remarkable was the fact that these all came within about two weeks of each other, with 5 at the Millfield International school tournament and then 6 at the BDCL U18 rapidplay just a couple of weeks later.

My results following this run - several draws and losses in the Kent Schools' League and an incredibly poor 0/6 in a local rapidplay - gave me the highly dubious record of not winning a single game for about 11 months.

I'd give up chess if I went 11 months without a win.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Eoin Devane wrote:Can anyone here match my 11 straight draws? Even more remarkable was the fact that these all came within about two weeks of each other, with 5 at the Millfield International school tournament and then 6 at the BDCL U18 rapidplay just a couple of weeks later.

My results following this run - several draws and losses in the Kent Schools' League and an incredibly poor 0/6 in a local rapidplay - gave me the highly dubious record of not winning a single game for about 11 months.

I'd give up chess if I went 11 months without a win.

Not if you were playing Carlsen, Anand and Topolov in a round robin you wouldn't.