Saturday 7 May 2016

King v King

The recent game from the Russian Teams Championship between Peter Svidler and Ian Neponiachtchi seems to have set some sort of new record. On move 40 Svidler player Kxf4 leaving only the 2 kings on the board. Technically the game should have stopped on move 39 after Nepo played Kxc7 (there is no mate possible after this), but I suspect Svidlers move came before an arbiter could step in.
The record in question is the shortest game to end this way. Now this game isn't the shortest, but it is one of the shortest. The shortest game to end with KvK was only 17 moves, but this was clearly a collaboration between the two players (  Haimovich and Zifroni). The next shortest game (in my database) is 35 moves, one of 10 that finish before move 40. However the players in these games were either unrated or lower rated, but of course a game is still a game.
Therefore the Svidler Nepo game might not be the shortest KvK game, but it is certainly the shortest GM game to end this way. The nearest rival looks to be a 43 move game, and unless there is some implicit collusion in the future, this may be a record that stands for quite a while.


Svidler,Peter (2762) - Nepomniachtchi,Ian (2703) [E60]
TCh-RUS Men 2016 Sochi RUS (1.1), 01.05.2016


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty sure the Chinese Champ from 2015 had a pre-arranged game that was only kings on move 40, maybe even 35.

Anonymous said...

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1792896

Zhao Jun vs Wei Yi
Chinese Championship (2015) · Sicilian Defense: Canal Attack. Main Line (B52) · 1/2-1/2

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5 Bd7 4. Bd7 Qd7 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 g6 7. d4 cd4 8. Nd4 Bg7 9. f3 O-O 10. O-O Rc8 11. b3 d5 12. ed5 Nd5 13. Nd5 e6 14. Bh6 ed5 15. Bg7 Kg7 16. Nb5 dc4 17. Nd6 Rd8 18. Nb7 Qd1 19. Rad1 Rd1 20. Rd1 cb3 21. ab3 Nc6 22. Rd7 a5 23. Kf2 a4 24. ba4 Ra4 25. Rd2 Rd4 26. Rd4 Nd4 27. Nc5 h5 28. Ne4 Ne6 29. h4 Nd4 30. g4 hg4 31. fg4 f5 32. gf5 Nf5 33. h5 gh5 34. Ng3 Ng3 35. Kg3 h4 36. Kh4

Name/URL said...

Both sides only used about 5-10 minutes in this "game" (Zhao-Wei) IIRC.

Exetron said...

Those two have another "famous" game where they played 20-odd moves with no captures before repeating moves.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1809798

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if that counts as a KvK game, because under the Laws of Chess the game ended before the knight was taken.