All eyes are on the Games in Paris, where an estimated 10,000 athletes from more than 200 nations will compete. This comes 100 years after the Paris Olympics of 1924, a milestone event when the number of competing nations jumped from 29 to 44.
That same year, Fide, the international governing body of chess, (Federation Internationale des Echecs) was founded in the 9th arrondissement’s town hall by Pierre Vincent, the secretary of the French Chess Federation. An unofficial chess Olympiad took place alongside the athletic Olympics, though the first official Fide Olympiad was not until 1927. Those were sympathetic times for international cooperation – the League of Nations was founded at the Paris Peace Conference in 1920.
And so, in 2024, Fide comes to mark its own centenary. They shovelled out some corporate guff with ten goals for the next 100 years, and I fell asleep after reading the first three: ‘Global expansion and accessibility’, ‘Digital revolution’ and ‘Educational integration’. I’ll spare you the rest. But a more imaginative initiative took place on 20 July, which is designated as International Chess Day. Fide’s goal was to set a new Guinness World Record for the number of games of chess played across the globe in a 24-hour period.
This being a new event, there was no target to beat, but what number would you imagine was reached? I’m reminded me of those interview brainteasers like ‘How many piano tuners are there in the world?’ or ‘How many golf balls can you fit in an aeroplane?’ The chess games record was set at 7,284,970, so hurrah for that! It will make a fine pub quiz tiebreaker question.
I find it easier to wrap my head around that number with a bit of arithmetic – it’s 5,000 games finishing every minute. That’s quite a testament to the timeless global appeal of chess. But what caught my eye was the fact that almost 99 per cent of those games were played online, and according to Fide more than six million took place on Chess.com (including its ChessKid platform).
Even more remarkable is that only games with at least five minutes each (or three minutes plus two seconds per move) were eligible for the record. In reality, there are vast numbers of online games played at even faster time limits, particularly one-minute chess. My back-of-the-envelope estimate is that if you included all those faster time controls, the true number of games might easily be 50 per cent higher.
The other 1 per cent or so of games (75,000 ish) took place in registered tournaments around the world. One of those was the US Junior Championship in St Louis, where the eventual winner finished his game on 20 July with a flourish.
Christopher Yoo-Jason Liang
US Junior Championships, St Louis, July 2024
1 e4 c5 2 Ne2 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e6 5 Nc3 Qc7 6 Be3 a6 7 Qf3 b5 8 Qg3 Bd6 9 f4 Nxd4 10 Bxd4 Ne7 11 e5 Bc5 12 Bxc5 Qxc5 13 Bd3 Bb7 14 O-O-O O-O 15 Rd2 f5 16 exf6 Rxf6 17 Be4 Qc7 18 Bxb7 Qxb7 19 Rhd1 Rd8 20 Qe1! A subtle retreat, preparing to include the knight in the game. If 20…Rxf4 21 Rxd7! crashes through. 20…Rf7 21 Ne4 Qc7 22 Ng5 Rff8 23 Qe4 g6 24 g3 Nc6 25 Rd6 Rf6 (see diagram) This prevents Nxe6, but walks into something worse: 26 Qxc6! dxc6 27 Rxd8+ Rf8 No better is 27…Kg7 28 R1d7+ 28 Rxf8+ Kxf8 29 Nxe6+ Black resigns
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