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      Home  >  General News  >  Chess Olympiad history

      Chess Olympiad history

      Calvia, Chess Olympiad, Moscow, Novi Sad, Thessaloniki


      I just recently found some very interesting Chess Olympiad statistics:

      Best individual results in Men’s Olympiads

      #

      Player

      Country

      Olymp.

      Games

      Won

      Drawn

      Lost

      %

      Medals

      1

      Mikhail Tal

      Soviet Union

      8

      101

      65

      34

      2

      81.2

      5 – 2 – 0

      2

      Anatoly Karpov

      Soviet Union

      6

      68

      43

      23

      2

      80.1

      3 – 2 – 0

      3

      Tigran Petrosian

      Soviet Union

      10

      129

      78

      50

      1

      79.8

      6 – 0 – 0

      4

      Isaac Kashdan

      United States

      5

      79

      52

      22

      5

      79.7

      2 – 1 – 1

      5

      Vassily Smyslov

      Soviet Union

      9

      113

      69

      42

      2

      79.6

      4 – 2 – 2

      6

      David Bronstein

      Soviet Union

      4

      49

      30

      18

      1

      79.6

      3 – 1 – 0

      7

      Garry Kasparov

      Soviet Union (1)

      8

      82

      50

      29

      3

      78.7

      7 – 2 – 2

      8

      Alexander Alekhine

      France

      5

      72

      43

      27

      2

      78.5

      2 – 2 – 0

      9

      Milan Matulovic

      Yugoslavia

      6

      78

      46

      28

      4

      76.9

      1 – 2 – 0

      10

      Paul Keres

      Soviet Union (2)

      10

      141

      85

      44

      12

      75.9

      5 – 1 – 1

      11

      Efim Geller

      Soviet Union

      7

      76

      46

      23

      7

      75.6

      3 – 3 – 0

      12

      James Tarjan

      United States

      5

      51

      32

      13

      6

      75.5

      2 – 1 – 0

      13

      Bobby Fischer

      United States

      4

      65

      40

      18

      7

      75.4

      2 – 1 – 0

      14

      Mikhail Botvinnik

      Soviet Union

      6

      73

      39

      31

      3

      74.7

      2 – 1 – 2

      15

      Salo Flohr

      Czechoslovakia

      7

      82

      46

      28

      8

      73.2

      2 – 1 – 1

      Unfortunately, I did not find similar statistics for the Women’s Olympiads.
      Here are my personal Chess Olympiad records:
      1988 Thessaloniki, Greece: 14 games: 7 wins – 7 draws – 0 loss = 10.5 points
      1990 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia: 14 games: 9 wins – 5 draws – 0 loss = 11.5 points
      1994 Moscow, Russia: 14 games: 8 wins – 6 draws – 0 loss = 11 points
      2004 Calviá, Spain: 14 games: 7 wins – 7 draws – 0 loss = 10.5 points
      Total: 56 games with 31 wins – 25 draws – 0 loss, all on board 1, never sat out for any round, for a percentage of 77.68%, with 10 medals (5 Gold medals, 4 Silver medals, and 1 Bronze medal).
      Source: Wiki and OlympiBase

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      23 Comments

      1. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:28 pm

        Were you lost at any moment in any of these games?

      2. Susan Polgar Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:40 pm

        Yes, I was in danger a few times. But luckily, I managed to save them.

        Best wishes,
        Susan Polgar

      3. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:41 pm

        Wow, thats amazing!

      4. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:42 pm

        I doubt it was luck. Rather your superior chess skill and mastery.

      5. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:49 pm

        What do you think about Chess Olympiads in general? Should they be played more often? They sound so good by name and attract all the world to meet in one place.

      6. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 2:53 pm

        Stunning!!!

        Ciao
        Luigi

      7. UFC 101 Live Stream Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 3:19 pm

        wow! soviet unions are doing it great!

      8. Jagdish Dube. Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 5:19 pm

        Dear Susan,Can you please display the datas of Boris Spassky,as I could not find his name in your list.(Amongst the Russian World Champions,Post 60’s)

      9. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 5:25 pm

        I’m just glad that Susan Polgar has NOT played in her last Olympiad yet!

      10. Özgür Akman Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 5:42 pm

        I have found in a university library in Ankara,Turkey about the history of Chess Olympics but it was quite an old one -probably until Thessaloniki 1988-. Apparently, I was so amused to find it there so I don’t remember any other details except for Tal’s being the best record. A pack of useful stats for trivia questions:))

      11. Özgür Akman Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 5:42 pm

        This comment has been removed by the author.

      12. Lionel Davis Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 6:06 pm

        Wow! nice results i want printouts!!! hehe-yeah they been doing well but they know whats up now! Yo Susan r they tryin to play IN-DA-HOOD-CHESS!!! hehe I know um silly!

      13. Anonymous Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 6:26 pm

        All men’s statistics are here:
        http://www.olimpbase.org/statistics/all_id10.html

        All women’s statistics are here:
        http://www.olimpbase.org/statisticsw/all_id01.html

      14. Entrenador Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 7:06 pm

        You are one bad woman Susan, with all those wins.

      15. V Reply
        August 7, 2009 at 7:17 pm

        Wow, Petrosian lost just once out of 129 games played, what a great performance… 6 individual gold medals, awesome.

      16. Anonymous Reply
        August 8, 2009 at 3:20 am

        With a lot of great Soviet GMs during their time, Tal and Petrosian probably played the lower boards in many Olympiads. (Botvinnik must have been Board 1 throughout the 50s.) So their impressive % results must be viewed from this perspective. They probably played lots of weaks IMs in their boards.

      17. Trivia Lover Reply
        August 8, 2009 at 3:38 am

        All the interesting Olympiad trivia on this site:

        http://www.olimpbase.org/articles/trivia.html

      18. Anonymous Reply
        August 8, 2009 at 5:27 am

        Was funny story about Petrosian only lost at Olympiad. Clock was unusual design, and flag fell earlier than Petrosian thought it would. Needless to say he was most upset, and when told he was photographed at that monment , he stated if he had known, he would have smashed the clock and they could have take a photo of that !

        Petrosian record of only 1 lost in so many games and Olympiads must stand out

      19. Jagdish Dube. Reply
        August 8, 2009 at 7:14 am

        Here is GM. Spassky’s Performance, (URS,FRA) 10 Olympiads 135 games played 54 Won 79 Drawn 2 Lost 69.3% score 3 Gold , 2 Bronze.

      20. Anonymous Reply
        August 8, 2009 at 8:40 pm

        “With a lot of great Soviet GMs during their time, Tal and Petrosian probably played the lower boards in many Olympiads.”

        Why don’t you check first, before talking such a bull?

        http://www.olimpbase.org/players/ikkqkgyh.html

        There you can see that Petrosian mostly played on board 1 (4 times) or board 2 (3 times).

      21. Anonymous Reply
        August 9, 2009 at 2:00 am

        “There you can see that Petrosian mostly played on board 1 (4 times) or board 2 (3 times).”

        So out of 10 Olympiads, Petrosian played top board only 4 times. I was exacly right, he played lower boards “in many Olympiads”. Where’s the bull there, you moron. You’re so stupid that you contradicted your own argument.

      22. Anonymous Reply
        August 9, 2009 at 8:52 am

        There are four boards at olympiad. Board 1 and 2 are upper boards, boards 3 and 4 are lower boards. Now I’ll let you do the math on how many olympiads Petrosian played on lower boards and how many he played on upper boards.

      23. Anonymous Reply
        August 12, 2009 at 12:05 am

        i absolutely love mikhail tal, his games are such beautiful! next come anderssen and judit

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