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Vasyl Ivanchuk
Ivanchuk 
 

Number of games in database: 4,252
Years covered: 1983 to 2025
Last FIDE rating: 2634 (2631 rapid, 2647 blitz)
Highest rating achieved in database: 2787
Overall record: +940 -325 =1423 (61.4%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games in the database. 1564 exhibition games, blitz/rapid, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Sicilian (362) 
    B90 B33 B32 B30 B92
 Ruy Lopez (210) 
    C65 C78 C84 C92 C67
 Queen's Gambit Declined (112) 
    D37 D38 D31 D30 D39
 Nimzo Indian (111) 
    E32 E21 E20 E34 E54
 King's Indian (107) 
    E92 E97 E60 E94 E81
 French Defense (104) 
    C11 C07 C10 C05 C03
With the Black pieces:
 Sicilian (371) 
    B90 B32 B30 B62 B46
 Ruy Lopez (199) 
    C84 C92 C77 C67 C65
 French Defense (125) 
    C11 C18 C07 C02 C05
 Grunfeld (107) 
    D85 D97 D76 D80 D87
 Queen's Indian (105) 
    E15 E12 E17 E19 E14
 Queen's Pawn Game (93) 
    E00 D02 A46 A45 A41
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Ivanchuk vs Shirov, 1996 1-0
   Ivanchuk vs Kasparov, 1991 1-0
   Kasparov vs Ivanchuk, 1995 0-1
   Topalov vs Ivanchuk, 1999 0-1
   Ivanchuk vs Karjakin, 2008 1-0
   Ivanchuk vs Topalov, 1996 1-0
   Ivanchuk vs Jobava, 2010 1-0
   Ivanchuk vs Morozevich, 1996 1-0
   Anand vs Ivanchuk, 1991 0-1
   Ivanchuk vs Topalov, 2007 1-0

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: [what is this?]
   FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (1999)
   FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2000)
   FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004)

NOTABLE TOURNAMENTS: [what is this?]
   Ukrainian Young Masters Championship (1985)
   Tilburg Interpolis (1993)
   European Junior Championship 1986/87 (1986)
   Tilburg Interpolis (1994)
   Linares (1995)
   Carlos Torre Memorial (2004)
   European Championship (2004)
   World Cup (2011)
   Gibraltar Masters (2011)
   World Junior Championship (1987)
   European Junior Championship 1987/88 (1987)
   President's Cup (1998)
   Trophee Anatoly Karpov (2012)
   USSR Army Championship (1988)
   Legends of Chess (2020)

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   Match Ivanchuk! by amadeus
   Match Ivanchuk! by docjan
   Vassily Ivanchuk: Selected Games by wanabe2000
   Vassily Ivanchuk: Selected Games by withg45
   Ivanchuk at the Olympics by amadeus
   Ivanchuk is IN by docjan
   Ivanchuk is IN by amadeus
   Ivanchuk 100 selected games-Kalinichenko's book by hakkepof
   Ivanchuk 100 selected games-Kalinichenko's book by Gottschalk
   Ivanchuk 100 selected games-Kalinichenko's book by amadeus
   Power Chess - Ivanchuk by Anatoly21
   Hilarity with Ivan C. by ughaibu
   English: Vassily Ivanchuk Collection by chess.master
   Move by Move - Ivanchuk (Tay) by BrendaVittoria

GAMES ANNOTATED BY IVANCHUK: [what is this?]
   Ivanchuk vs A Graf, 1988

RECENT GAMES:
   🏆 UzChess Cup Challengers
   Ivanchuk vs M Suyarov (Jun-27-25) 1-0
   N Theodorou vs Ivanchuk (Jun-26-25) 0-1
   Ivanchuk vs Q Ma (Jun-25-25) 1/2-1/2
   A Hong vs Ivanchuk (Jun-24-25) 0-1
   N Abasov vs Ivanchuk (Jun-23-25) 1/2-1/2

Search Sacrifice Explorer for Vasyl Ivanchuk
Search Google for Vasyl Ivanchuk
FIDE player card for Vasyl Ivanchuk

VASYL IVANCHUK
(born Mar-18-1969, 56 years old) Ukraine
PRONUNCIATION:
[what is this?]

IM (1987); GM (1988); European Junior Champion (1987); Candidate (1991 & 2013); vice-World Champion (FIDE) (2001-02); European Champion (2004).

Preamble and summary

Vassily (Vasyl) Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk was born in Kopychyntsi in Ukraine and has been amongst the world elite players for the last two decades. He has long been a world title aspirant, having twice been a Candidate (in 1990 and 2013), and has won many major tournaments including the annual Linares (4 times) and the Tal Memorial (twice). During past eleven years from 2005 onwards, he has won the Capablanca memorial (a record for their tournament history) 7 times (out of 8 appearances) in which he has participated in it, including one tied share of 1st with Le Quang Liem (before tie-breaks were applied) in 2011.

Ivanchuk was married to IM and WGM Alisa Galliamova until their separation in 1996. He remarried in November 2006.

Tournaments

Ivanchuk was the European Junior Champion in 1987, the same year he received his IM title. His first major international result was in 1988 when he won the New York Open with 7.5/9. Also in 1988, he came equal first at the World Junior Chess Championship in Adelaide, although Joel Lautier won the title on tiebreak. 1988 also saw him win his GM title. He followed these early breakthroughs with numerous successes in a glittering career, including first place at Biel 1989, Yerevan 1989, Linares in 1989, 1991, 1995 and 2009 (shared with Alexander Grischuk), equal first (with Gata Kamsky) at the Tilburg super-tournament in 1990, then first in Munich 1994, Horgen 1995, Corus at Wijk aan Zee 1996, Belgrade 1997, Tallinn 2000, Montecatini Terme 2000 and Malmö 2003.

From 2004, he won: the European Championship (2004), the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2005), the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2006) and the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2007) the Carlos Torre Memorial (2004) in Mexico, Barcelone 2005, joint first in the Canadian Open (2005), and first at the Casino de Barcelona Masters (2005), Tallin 2006, and Mérida 2006. He was runner up at the European Championship (2006), and subsequently won at the Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup (2007), Aerosvit (2007) in Foros, the Montreal International (2007), the M-Tel Masters (2008) with a dominant 8/10 score and a 2959 performance rating, the Tal Memorial (2008) with 6/9, a point ahead of the field, the XXI Magistral Ciudad de Leon (2008) ahead of Viswanathan Anand, and the Bazna Tournament (2009).

His most notable achievement in 2009 was winning the FIDE Jermuk Grand Prix (2009) outright with 8.5/13. In 2010, Ivanchuk won the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2010) ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi with 7/10 and a 2839 performance and in July, he produced a rating performance of 2911 when he scored 6/7 in the 38th Greek Team Championship A Division. In the category 18 Reggio Emilia (2010) that finished on 6 January 2011, Ivanchuk scored 5/9 (+3 -2 =4) to come =3rd (5th on countback) behind Vugar Gashimov and Francisco Vallejo Pons TPR was 2729. Ivanchuk returned to his full majestic form during the Gibraltar Masters (2011) event, which he won outright with 9/10 (+8 -0 =2) and a 2964 performance rating, ahead of a field that included 55 grandmasters; 9 of his opponents were grandmasters, the other an IM. He followed this up by taking out the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2011), his fifth win in this tournament, with 6.5/10, winning on tiebreak ahead of Le Quang Liem by defeating him in the final round. In October, he came =1st (2nd on blitz tiebreaker) with Magnus Carlsen at the Grand Slam Chess Final (2011), both scoring 15 points under the points system used at Bilbao (3 for the win, 1 for the draw) with 4 wins 3 losses and 3 draws and a TPR of 2818. Then in November, Ivanchuk came 3rd in the Tal Memorial (2011) with 5/9 (+2 -1 =6 and a TPR of 2815) behind Carlsen and Levon Aronian respectively. He started 2012 at the Tata Steel Group A (2012) tournament, placing =5th with 7.5/13 (+3 -1 =9; TPR 2807) and then followed up with a couple of wins - his 6th at the annual Capablanca Memorial - at the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2012) and a clear first with 5/6 in the inaugural (and unrated) ACP Golden Classic (2012) which showcased longer classical time limits and adjournments. He won the quadrangular double round robin Kings' Tournament (2012) held in Bucharest in a tiebreaker with Topalov to round out his 2012 campaign.

Ivanchuk started 2013 with his final warm-up before the World Championship Candidates (2013) at the Gibraltar Masters (2013), scoring 7.5/10 to share 5th place, a half point behind the four co-leaders. He led for most of the Gibraltar Masters (2014) and was first on normal tiebreak, however, as first place at Gibraltar is decided by blitz when there is more than one leader on points, Ivanchuk came in third behind the winner Ivan Cheparinov and runner up Nikita Vitiugov. His traditional happy hunting ground in Cuba was disastrous at the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2014) when he came in last with 4/10. He bounced back at the 9th Edmonton International (2014) where he won decisively with 8/9, a half point ahead of Filipino wunderkind Wesley So with whom he drew in their individual encounter. In January 2015, he participated in the Tata Steel Masters (2015), and finished a ratings-boosting 6th with a score of 7.5/13 after leading the event in its early stages. In June, he played in the 10th Edmonton International (2015) in Canada, and placed =2nd behind Pentala Harikrishna and alongside Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Wang Hao.

Match

In match play he won the Ivanchuk - Leko Match (2009) by 3.5-2.5 (+1 =5). Ivanchuk played a combined rapid/blitz match against Anish Giri at the 26th Leon Masters 2013; he lost both the 45 minute (G45) 2-game match with 1 loss and 1 draw and the 4-game G20 rapid match with 3 losses and 1 draw. However, he decisively won the blitz (G5) portion of the match by 7.5-2.5 (+6 -1 =3). Giri was declared the winner of the match as the slower games were given greater weighting than the blitz games.

Rapid tournaments

One of the foremost rapid players of the age, Ivanchuk has won the World Blitz Championship (2007), the Tal Memorial (Blitz) (2008), the Amber Tournament (Rapid) (2010) (with Carlsen) – also joint 1st with Carlsen overall in Amber 2010; a 3 way tie for first at Keres Memorial Rapid (2006) with Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Anatoly Karpov. In rapid match play he defeated David Navara by 5.5-2.5 (+4 -1 =3) in the Cez Trophy (2009) and Peter Leko in Ivanchuk - Leko Rapid Match (2007) by 7.5-6.5 (+3 -2 =9). Ivanchuk immediately followed up his Olympiad triumph in 2010 by winning the final of the 9th Cap d'Agde in France when he defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the final. At the Bazna King's Tournament (2011), he scored 4/10 but won the Latvian Railway Rapid (2014), spreadeagling the field with an amazing 13/14, 3 points clear of runner-up Vladimir Malakhov. He played in the Mind Games staged in Beijing in December 2014, and scored a strong 17/30 to place =5th and boost his blitz rating by nearly 70 points.

National Teams

Ivanchuk has played in fourteen Olympiads up to and including Tromso Olympiad (2014), and won four team gold medals: in 1988 and 1990 playing for the Soviet Union, and in 2004 and 2010, playing for Ukraine. In the 2010 event, he also won individual gold for the top board, scoring 8/10 with a 2890 rating performance, while in 2012 he helped his team to a bronze medal. He has played in eight World Team Championships starting in 1989 and most recently in the FIDE World Team Championship (2015), when he scored team and individual silver for board 2. In total, he has scored 3 individual golds, 2 individual silver and 1 individual bronze, as well as helping his team to 2 golds, 2 silvers and 2 bronzes. His first effort in the World Team Championships was as part of the Soviet team in 1989, but subsequently he has played for Ukraine.

World Championships

Ivanchuk's entry to the World Championship cycle began in grand style when he came equal first with Boris Gelfand, scoring 9/13 at the 1990 Manila Interzonal, a half point ahead of equal third placed Anand and Nigel Short, and qualified for the Candidates cycle. He decisively won the first match, a best-of-eight, against Leonid Yudasin by 4.5-0.5, but lost the second match to Artur Yusupov in the tiebreaker games, 1.5-0.5, after drawing the main match 4-4. Then came the split between FIDE and the Kasparov-led PCA. His next attempt was at the Biel Interzonal (he did not compete in the PCA cycle) where he scored 8/13 to place =10th with five others; unfortunately for him, the only player from this group to qualify for the Candidates was Anand, who came 10th on count back, Ivanchuk coming 14th.

Ivanchuk's next opportunity came with the 1998 World Championship knockout matches held in Groningen to choose a challenger for Karpov. Ivanchuk was seeded into the second round but lost that match to the US's Yasser Seirawan. Seeded into the second round of the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (1999), he made a clean sweep of his games against Matthias Wahls and Sergei Shipov but then lost his match against Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu in the fourth round rapid game tiebreaker. He fared even worse the following year at the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2000) in New Delhi and Tehran, where, again seeded into the second round, he lost to Jaan Ehlvest. Then at the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2001/02), he defeated Baatr Shovunov, Bartlomiej Macieja, Emil Sutovsky, Ye Jiangchuan, Joel Lautier and Viswanathan Anand in the preliminary rounds to reach the final against Ruslan Ponomariov Ivanchuk lost the first game of this match, drew the next three, before losing the 5th game and drawing the 6th and 7th games to go down by 4.5-2.5. Following this close miss, Ivanchuk competed in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004), winning in the first two rounds against Adlane Arab and Pentala Harikrishna before losing to the eventual winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

The breakdown of unification talks, and FIDE's reorganization of the World Championship cycle saw the cessation of the World Knockout Championships. Ivanchuk was not invited to the first stage in this process, namely the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2005) won by Veselin Topalov, but participated in the World Cup (2005) where he crashed out in the second round to Ivan Cheparinov after beating Alexander Sibriaev in the first round. He fared only slightly better in the World Cup (2007) where he again lost to Nisipeanu, this time in the third round after winning his earlier rounds against Pedro Aderito and Alexander Galkin. At the World Cup (2009), he easily won his first round game against Alexei Bezgodov, before again crashing and burning in the second round to Filipino prodigy Wesley So. Ivanchuk was beside himself after this loss, and announced his retirement from chess, however he recanted this soon afterwards. The World Cup (2011) has seen his most successful effort since the 2002 event, defeating South African FM Henry Robert Steel, Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev, Israeli GM Emil Sutovsky, Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi in the first four rounds, Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov in the quarter final 25+10 rapid-game tiebreaker, and then losing to Grischuk in the semi-final 10+10 rapid game tiebreaker. He then met compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov in the playoff for third, defeating him by 2.5-1.5 to win a spot in the World Championship Candidates (2013), the first time he has won a place in the Candidates since his =1st result in the Manila Interzonal of 1990. He proved to be extremely erratic at the Candidates, finishing 7th out of 8 with 6/14 (+3 -5 =6), losing a string of game in zeitnot, and yet defeating both the eventual winner Carlsen and runner-up Kramnik.

His 2014 World championship campaign started sluggishly with a mediocre 5/11 at the first event in the 2012-2013 Grand Prix series, namely the FIDE Grand Prix London (2012), where his 7th placement earned him only 55 GP points. His 2nd event in the series, the FIDE Grand Prix Thessaloniki (2013), was disastrous, placing last with 3.5/11 and only earning the minimum 10 points. His 3rd event in the series, the FIDE Grand Prix Beijing (2013), was also disappointing, as his =9th knocked him out of contention for the top 2 Grand Prix qualifiers to the Candidates Tournament in 2014. (1)

He was, however, still eligible to play in the World Cup (2013) in August where he defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the first round, US teenager, GM Ray Robson, in the second round and compatriot, GM Yuriy Kryvoruchko, in the third round. He lost to former World Champion, Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik in the Round of 16 (fourth round). Ivanchuk qualified by rating to play in the World Cup (2015) and he defeated Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly in the first round and Maxim Rodshtein in the second round before bowing out of the event in round three following his loss to Dmitry Jakovenko.

The main obstacle to Ivanchuk winning the World Championship has been considered to be his erratic temperament and the occasional tendency to lose critical games. This can be seen from his results against the super elite: although he has defeated all the World Classical and FIDE champions after Robert James Fischer, his only positive career score against this elite group has been against Alexander Khalifman.

Ratings and rankings

Ivanchuk has been rated as high as second in the world - in July 1991 when he reached 2735 behind Garry Kasparov, in July 1992 at 2720 again behind Kasparov, and in October 2007 when he reached 2787 behind Anand. His early rise in the rankings was so meteoric that he was world #10 in 1988 while still an IM. His ratings card graphically demonstrates the roller coaster ride that has been his game over the last few years: http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?ev....

Sources and references

(1) Wikipedia article: FIDE Grand Prix 2012%E2%80%932013 (2) http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo198...; live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/; Part 1 of an interview held on 27 April 2011 with Chess in translation: http://www.chessintranslation.com/2...; Part 2 of the interview is at http://www.chessintranslation.com/2...;

Wikipedia article: Vasyl Ivanchuk

Last updated: 2021-11-27 10:21:04

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 171; games 1-25 of 4,252  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Ivanchuk vs M Golubev 1-0331983Armiansk ch-Ukr jrE98 King's Indian, Orthodox, Taimanov, 9.Ne1
2. Ivanchuk vs J Dovzik  1-0251983Ukrainian Team ChampionshipB10 Caro-Kann
3. I Novikov vs Ivanchuk  1-0411983Ukrainian Team ChampionshipD44 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
4. Ivanchuk vs Shabalov  0-1431983Soviet Army Team ChampionshipE04 Catalan, Open, 5.Nf3
5. Dreev vs Ivanchuk  1-0361984USSR Junior ChampionshipB00 Uncommon King's Pawn Opening
6. Minasian vs Ivanchuk  ½-½461984USSR Junior ChampionshipB00 Uncommon King's Pawn Opening
7. Ivanchuk vs Serper  1-0221984USSR Junior ChampionshipA70 Benoni, Classical with 7.Nf3
8. Ivanchuk vs L B Hansen  1-0471984World Championship (U16)A32 English, Symmetrical Variation
9. Dreev vs Ivanchuk ½-½521984World Championship (U16)A07 King's Indian Attack
10. F Hellers vs Ivanchuk ½-½301984World Championship (U16)B09 Pirc, Austrian Attack
11. Ivanchuk vs T Tabatadze 1-0361985URS-chT (Juniors)B09 Pirc, Austrian Attack
12. Ivanchuk vs Smirin 1-0331985URSB64 Sicilian, Richter-Rauzer Attack
13. Ivanchuk vs Dreev 1-0321985URS-chT (Juniors)D31 Queen's Gambit Declined
14. Ivanchuk vs Sergey Rokhanov  1-0321985Klaipeda JuniorsC42 Petrov Defense
15. Gelfand vs Ivanchuk ½-½191985URSC05 French, Tarrasch
16. Serper vs Ivanchuk 0-1241985URS-chT (Juniors)B77 Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav Attack
17. Oll vs Ivanchuk 0-1381985KlaipedaD47 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
18. Gelfand vs Ivanchuk 1-0351985USSR Junior ChampionshipB62 Sicilian, Richter-Rauzer
19. Ivanchuk vs S Savchenko  1-0471985USSR Junior ChampionshipD17 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
20. Serper vs Ivanchuk ½-½251985USSR Junior ChampionshipC05 French, Tarrasch
21. Ivanchuk vs Shakhvorostov 1-0311985USSR Junior ChampionshipB87 Sicilian, Fischer-Sozin with ...a6 and ...b5
22. D Ruzele vs Ivanchuk  0-1251985USSR Junior ChampionshipD44 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
23. Ivanchuk vs A Frolov  1-0371985USSR Junior ChampionshipE17 Queen's Indian
24. Ivanchuk vs M Ulybin  ½-½451985USSR Junior ChampionshipA61 Benoni
25. M Golubev vs Ivanchuk  ½-½211985Klaipeda jr SU-qualC19 French, Winawer, Advance
 page 1 of 171; games 1-25 of 4,252  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Ivanchuk wins | Ivanchuk loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 162 OF 162 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Apr-23-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: <offramp>, did you attach weights to Niemann's ankles to make things halfway interesting at least?
Apr-24-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: The great GM Vasily played at Alicante, and now he is playing at Menorca Open (2025) (kibitz #1).

My <ankle-tag spotting app> is buzzing like crazy.

Apr-24-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: Nice places to be, and especially so this time of year.
Apr-27-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: Vasyl Ivanchuk came second at Reykjavik Open (2025) but he won an Icelandic₿₿₿itcoin and a Viking horned helmet⚔️🛡️ 🏹 🗡️ᶠᶸᶜᵏMe𓀐𓂸.

His gyrocopter🚽 runs on kerosene and calor gas which give huge acceleration.

He flew from Keflavik to Nempnett Thrubwell where he was required to refuel.

He was wearing the Viking helmet and his red white striped shirt.

ATM he is preparing to take off from Menorca. Where will he go next??

Apr-27-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: I am pretty certain that his gyrocopter will carry him to Cagliari, Sardinia, where he can take place in the <Sardinians Over 60 or Seriously Handicapped, Blind, Deaf, Hunchbacked or Transsexual> tournament in <Decimomannu>, north of Cagliari.
Apr-28-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Check It Out: <offramp> You are so weird :D
Apr-29-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: Vassily is on his way to the <Superbet Goldmoney Sunway Airthings Quadrangular Chessable Tournament> in Vleekinkger. First prize is €1000.
Apr-29-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Check It Out: Congrats to Ivanchuk for winning the Menorca Open over some tough competition, scoring 8/9 and gaining almost 40 rating points. Ya gotta love Chuky!
Apr-30-25  Olavi: <Check It Out> He did not gain the almost 40 rating points in this one tournament.
Jun-22-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: On the Stats page I noticed this:

<What players have the most games in the database? 1. Magnus Carlsen (5,213)
2. Viktor Korchnoi (4,872)
3. Vasyl Ivanchuk (4,246).>

In a few years Vassil will move into 2nd place.

Jun-22-25  Olavi: Korchnoi and Ivanchuk are up there because of real games... Chucky naturally has a lot of quick games too. When will Carlsen move ahead of Korchnoi? Never.
Jun-22-25  Olavi: It is easy to find weekends when Carlsen played more 'games' than Korchnoi did in a year, even in his most active periods. The same goes for many other too of course.
Jun-22-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: I wonder whether Korchnoi ever played 100 games in a calendar year.
Jun-22-25  stone free or die: Posing a similar question to Google AI gets various, somewhat inconsistent, results:

Try 1:

<AI Overview

Viktor Korchnoi played the most rated chess games in 1971, participating in 63 rated games. He played a total of 4641 rated games throughout his career, according to the Chess Games Database Online. >

Try 3:

<
Viktor Korchnoi played the most rated chess games in 1979, with a total of 155 games. He also had a high number of games played in other years, including 1974 (128 games), 1977 (123 games), and 1978 (120 games). In his entire career, Korchnoi played a total of 4641 rated games, according to 365Chess.com. >

Try 4 - same question, but dig deeper selected:

<Q- what is the most rated games korchnoi played in a year:

Based on the search results, it's not possible to definitively state which year Viktor Korchnoi played the most rated games. These sources primarily focus on his overall game count and notable games, rather than providing yearly game statistics. The provided information offers some insights:

Total Games: Korchnoi played a significant number of games. One source states a total of 4,872 games between 1945 and 2015. Another source lists 4,641 total games. ...>

Always read the fine print:

<AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more>

Jun-23-25  FM David H. Levin: <<stone free or die>: Always read the fine print:

<AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more>>

Ah, so a user might get "artificial ignorance."

I used Chess Genius's database to try to find years where VK had a lot of games. One was 1987, for which I found the following at CG (with number of games at the start of each line, where known).

?: Auxerre

11: Be'er Sheva (1987)

?: French championship

?: Switzerland

13: Hoogovens (1987)

11: Reykjavik (1987)

?: Genoa

11: SWIFT Tournament 2nd (1987)

22: SWIFT Blitz (1987)

6: Euwe Memorial (1987)

16: Zagreb Interzonal (1987)

14: Tilburg Interpolis (1987)

11: Investbanka Belgrade (1987)

2: European Club Cup R2, Stockholm (1987)

2: European Club Cup R3, Rotterdam (1987)

?: Reggio Emilia (1987/88)

According to this list, VK played 97 known classical games in 1987. It seems a virtual lock that including the French Championship would push the total over 100, and any 1987 games from Reggio Emilia would be icing on the cake. And this excludes the SWIFT Blitz.

Jun-23-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: Korchnoi booked two wins from Sharif in the French team championship as well and won a game from Rogers in the Dutch version per 365chess:

https://www.365chess.com/search_res...

Jun-23-25  Olavi: Hort and Miles played some 130-140 games a year regularly. You won't find all of them in the databases, many of them were in obscure opens.
Jun-23-25  fabelhaft: There have been less of short draws in classical events the last decades than around 50 years ago. For example Hort has no less than 320 draws in 15 moves or less while Carlsen has one in classical over the last 20 years. So much more of speed chess for modern players, but also a higher percentage of ”real” games in classical.
Jun-23-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sally Simpson: <Hi fabelhaft>

In the past decade it has become common practice not to allow agreed draws before a certain amount of moves, sometimes not allowed before move 40.

This is a step in the right direction and will explain why there are so few short draws in modern top level chess - they are not allowed. Though there are some well known perpetuals players use to get around this.

Jun-23-25  stone free or die: <<fabelhaft> For example Hort has no less than 320 draws in 15 moves or less while Carlsen has one in classical over the last 20 years. >

Have to careful, er, "drawing" any conclusions from such a stat due to the influence of Sofia rules and the like.

The modern-day tournaments still has GM-draws, but they're now often 30-move lines, or sometimes, a shorter well-known opening ending in 3x-repetition.

Jun-23-25  fabelhaft: <The modern-day tournaments still has GM-draws, but they're now often 30-move lines, or sometimes, a shorter well-known opening ending in 3x-repetition>

They sure exist, but I think the difference is rather big compared with for example Vienna IBM Open (1986)/Anatoly Karpov or Chigorin Memorial (1973)/Ulf Andersson. Players like Gukesh or Carlsen in general work harder during their games even if they too have the occasional equivalent of the old style GM draw.

Jun-23-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sally Simpson: <Hi fabelhaft>

"Players like Gukesh or Carlsen in general work harder during their games."

And off the board twice harder as well. Modern classical chess is a young players game. Blitz and rapid the older ones will be OK.

Also these the older tournaments had adjudications and not sit down and play to a finish with no quick draw rules.

Jun-24-25  fabelhaft: It has changed rather much in just a couple of decades, with World Champions playing events like Norway Chess (2025)/Dommaraju Gukesh or GRENKE Chess Classic (2019)/Magnus Carlsen compared to Linares (2004)/Vladimir Kramnik
Jun-27-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sally Simpson: <Hi fabelhaft>

I said, referring to modern players they work twice hard at the game off the board.

Today I met someone I had not seen since 1979 and he reminded me of three days we spent on and off analysing a Tartakower game. (it was Tartakower vs R Frentz, 1933 which is in Chernev's 'Most Instructive Games')

So upon reflection maybe not twice as hard as the old masters off the board. With a computer we would have sorted that out in 15 minutes (even less).

That was just a couple of enthusiasts enjoying themselves. GM's before computers had to spend hours/days looking for TN's, reasons why they lost, subtle improvements and of course no databases to help prep.
They built the bedrock of modern theory with sweat not silicon.

I did them a misservice in that respect. I was thinking along the lines of these days the improvements and TN's come much later, every player has access to top computers to consult, help prep and all players 2500 upwards have a vast knowledge of theory that they can garner without ever opening a book.

Jun-27-25  stone free or die: <<sally> They built the bedrock of modern theory with sweat not silicon.

I did them a [disservice] in that respect.>

Some nice insights in that post <sally>.

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