the longest no-losing streak.

[David Pardoe]

Not a particularly notable achievement, but one long run I had was on the Gameknot website. Playing in fairly modest company I scored 51 wins & a draw, before losing a recent game.

[Joey Stewart]

Keith is correct in a way

Nick is currently on an unbeaten run of 52 FIDE games, though he doesn't say anything about non-FIDE games

That is pretty amazing stuff - fide games are hard as hell too, so to not lose one in that long is quite likely one of the greatest achievements of any English player.
I keep trying to drum up a bit more support for Nick (a fellow Warwick University Graduate) but nobody seems to give him the credit he is due.

[LozCooper]

Keith is correct in a way

Nick is currently on an unbeaten run of 52 FIDE games, though he doesn't say anything about non-FIDE games

That is pretty amazing stuff - fide games are hard as hell too, so to not lose one in that long is quite likely one of the greatest achievements of any English player.
I keep trying to drum up a bit more support for Nick (a fellow Warwick University Graduate) but nobody seems to give him the credit he is due.

Maybe by nobody you know but I can assure you he is very highly thought of by his fellow players and also by organisers and officials. Anyone who becomes a Grandmaster, wins a world junior title and reaches a FIDE rating of 2570 deserves all the credit he gets.

[Joey Stewart]

You are the first person here to give him much credit - when the British championships were on and I was saying what a great run he was having they were too keen to focus on other aspects of the tournament and poor old Nick got forgotten.

[IM Jack Rudd]

You are the first person here to give him much credit - when the British championships were on and I was saying what a great run he was having they were too keen to focus on other aspects of the tournament and poor old Nick got forgotten.

This is, I think, part of the human instinct to focus on stories, and "second seed finishes second" is not a story in the same way that, say "Adams breaks record with championship win" or "Hunt gets GM norm" or "Tymrakiewicz gets IM norm" or "Arkell leaves queen en prise" or "Maciol plays worst move on the board" or "Rayner-French gets scored ½-1" is.

[Alan Walton]

Also, by not posting on here doesn't mean we are ignorant of other chess players ability and performances, we do this in person when we see them

[Stewart Reuben]

Dr John Nunn told me he played over 90 games without loss and that it was something of a relief when he lost. It is is very long time ago and I think it included unrated English weekend Swisses. I doubt it was much more than one year.

Nick is playing in Hastings, as is Mark.
Stewart Reuben

[Matt Mackenzie]

Counting all "classical" games my record is 27 over more than five years

(explainable because I gave up serious chess between late 1989 and spring 1994 - the last three games of that earler "career" and the first 24 on returning)

Apart from that, it is 26, spanning most of the 2007/08 season - including going unbeaten at the Blackpool Open, a unique achievement for me

[IM Jack Rudd]

I have a run of 35 games with no draws in the British Championship:

1996: lost in round 11
1997: +4 =0 -7
1998: did not play (the last time I did not play in it)
1999: +5 =0 -6
2000: +5 =0 -6
2001: lost in round 1

[Michael Jones]

I even have the results because I'm a bit odd like that

You think it's odd that a chess player knows the results of the games they've played recently? Have you never met any of those players that have detailed records going back years and years of all the games they've ever played, and the precise state of their grade at this moment in time, and a detailed database of all their opening variations? Oh, those players are called grandmasters!

The only thing worse than obsessively keeping records of your own games is obsessively keeping records of other people's as well.

http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/chess/halloffame.html

I would have added more records but I left the club before I got round to it! Note the record for most draws in a season: +3=15-2. Not sure how many of those were consecutive.

[Colin Patterson]

According to Winter (BCM, March 1978), the Capablanca no-losing streak mentioned earlier in the thread stretched from 10/2/1916-21/3/1924. That's over eight years at the top level!

Along with Tal's run, another noteworthy record of this type was Tigran Petrosian's Olympiad score - out of 139 games he lost only one (to Hubner). Of course, most readers will be familiar with Polugaevsky's famous quote " ... In those years, it was easier to win the Soviet Championship than a game against 'Iron Tigran' ".

[Sean Hewitt]

http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/chess/halloffame.html

Completely off topic Michael, but whatever happened to the Cov league website. It doesn't seem to have been updated this year.

[Nick Pert]

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!!!!

[Michael Jones]

http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/chess/halloffame.html

Completely off topic Michael, but whatever happened to the Cov league website. It doesn't seem to have been updated this year.

The webmaster either hasn't had time or can't be bothered, I don't know which. The university club site is scarcely any better (I left last summer and no-one's been regularly updating it since); the best (=only) way to find out what's going on in the Cov league is from Rugby's site, http://rugbychessclub.blogspot.com/

[Jonathan Bryant]

If you include unrated games then my record is well over 100 games, probably about 150 ....

Holy crap, that's incredible.