Sunday 25 May 2014

The Busiest Players (at the top)

In a completely non-scientific investigation, I decided to see who were the chess worlds busiest players. My only tool was a slightly out of date database, and my copy of chessbase. A quick click on the 'sort by games' option threw up the hardly surprising name of Viktor Kortschnoi, with over 4500 games on file.
Of course both the method and the data may not provide the correct answer as there is obviously filtering functions at work. The list of top players were made up of top level GM's which indicates that their games are more likely to be both published and collected. It is also likely that non-serious games (simuls, blitz etc) are probably tossed into the mix. So to be slightly more accurate, it is the busiest top players that I found.
After Kortschnoi, the next human player is Karpov (a couple of chess engines squeeze in between them). The top 5 is rounded out by Gligoric, Hort and Miles, while Australian GM Ian Rogers is placed 31st, just in front of Mr Bye!
Anyway, here is the earliest Kortschnoi - Karpov game I can find, from a simul in 1962. Karpov would have been around 11 years ol at the time, and the game finished in a draw.


Kortschnoi,Viktor L - Karpov,Anatoly [C66]
Tscheljabinsk sim, 1962


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rogers easily tops 5,000 in a more comprehensive database but English weekend specialists like Arkell and Hebden leave him for dead.