Tournament records

Largest chess tournament

In 1935-36, the USSR Trade Unions chess championship was held. It had 700,000 entrants, the largest of any chess tournament.

Largest Olympiad

The 35th Chess Olympiad in Bled in 2002 had 136 men’s teams and 92 women’s teams, the large Olympiad ever.

Largest ETCC

The largest European Team Chess Championship was in Crete, Greece. 39 countries sent their delegations

Most Grandmasters in one tournament

In 1989, the Belgrade Grandmaster’s Association had 98 grandmasters participating, the most grandmasters in one tournament.

Biggest simultaneous chess event

14000 is the number of players who had appeared in in Mexico City, in 2005.

Strongest chess tournament.

The 1996 Las Palmas tournament was a Category 21 tournament with the average rating of 2756, making it the strongest tournament ever. The event took place from December 9 through Decmber 21, 1996. The six best players in the world participated in a double round event. The event was won by Kasparov (2785), followed by Anand (2735), Kramnik (2765), Topalov (2750), Karpov (2775), and Ivanchuk (2730). Five of the six have been world champions.