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(September 2003) For the About Chess register of historical tournaments (see the link box in the upper right corner for three pages covering separate periods), we identified 207 events starting with London 1851, the first international tournament.
This built on some work we started in 2001 for a review of Chess Informant's Chess Is Chess (see the link box again).
Although ordered by year, the events are not yet in chronological order within each year.
The register also doesn't include World Championships or matches, which are covered extensively offsite (link box again).
The universe of events from which we derived our register is nearly double the number of tournaments that made the final list.
In particular, the Soviet Championships (denoted 'USSR (ch)' in the register) are listed haphazardly and deserve a page of their own.
Watch for a companion article with a more complete treatment.
***
Our first table shows a count of events by decade.
Well over half of the events in the register took place since 1980.
Tournaments per Decade
| 1850+ |
2 |
• |
1930+ |
12 |
| 1860+ |
0 |
• |
1940+ |
2 |
| 1870+ |
2 |
• |
1950+ |
8 |
| 1880+ |
5 |
• |
1960+ |
9 |
| 1890+ |
7 |
• |
1970+ |
12 |
| 1900+ |
10 |
• |
1980+ |
41 |
| 1910+ |
5 |
• |
1990+ |
59 |
| 1920+ |
14 |
• |
2000+ |
19 |
Our second table shows the number of times a player finished first or tied for first in one of the events on our register.
Of the 74 different winners on the register, we list those who won five or more events as well as the first and last years when they won.
Not too surprisingly, the careers of the players at the top of the list coincide with the intense tournament activity of the last two decades.
First place by Player
| Player |
No. |
: |
First |
Last |
| Kasparov, G. |
33 |
: |
1982 |
2002 |
| Karpov, An |
28 |
: |
1971 |
1996 |
| Anand, V. |
14 |
: |
1991 |
2003 |
| Kramnik, V. |
13 |
: |
1993 |
2003 |
| Ivanchuk, V. |
11 |
: |
1989 |
2000 |
| Topalov, V. |
9 |
: |
1996 |
2002 |
| Lasker, Em |
8 |
: |
1895 |
1924 |
| Alekhine, A. |
7 |
: |
1923 |
1936 |
| Timman, J. |
7 |
: |
1978 |
1989 |
| Botvinnik, M. |
6 |
: |
1935 |
1956 |
| Capablanca, J. |
6 |
: |
1911 |
1936 |
| Spassky, B. |
6 |
: |
1959 |
1983 |
| Gelfand, B. |
5 |
: |
1992 |
2002 |
| Keres, P. |
5 |
: |
1936 |
1963 |
| Rubinstein, A. |
5 |
: |
1907 |
1922 |
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