Last weekend I saw the largest upset I have witnessed in 34 years of rated chess: 1,118 points. (640–1758)
Can anyone top this?
No but I bet this was along the same lines of the ones I saw this weekend from a HS senior
who was rated 548 7 years ago, and just picked up the game again. Now through three return
tournaments his rating is 1170. much hardship to the ratings of his victims.
Rob Jones
Not quite. The winner was a young player, 13 or 14, rated 640 going in. He has played sporadically for a few years, and while he was definitely under-rated, it was probably not by a huge amount. It was more a case of a veteran adult player, in his late 50s and on a recent losing streak, who underestimated his young opponent and made a classic oversight in a tactical line, playing quickly in a G/40.
The game went:
- e4 e5
- Nf3 Nc6
- Bc4 Nf6
- d4 exd4
- e5 d5
- exd6 e.p. Bxd6
- Nxd4?? Nxd4
- Qxd4?? Bb4+, winning the White Q for one minor piece
Had the game continued, it’s not out of the question that White could have fought back, complicated as best he could and not lost. He figured the proper thing to do was resign—and I agree. Still the most remarkable upset I have seen.
I think we’ve had upsets of 1500 or more points (using established ratings), but there are a lot of odd-looking events out there so searching for them is not trivial.
I lost to a 702-rated player (provisional) when I was rated 1840 (1138 points). Combination of him playing well, me playing poorly, and him being able to finish me off when I was wriggling to get out.
I’ve had several completely lost positions against U1000 players, but managed to slip out of them all and win. All except one.
main.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.ph … 2-13847781
Check out player number 10, 341P5 beating player number 6, 1700 P10.
That’s 1359 points.
Player 10 was an adult playing in his second tournament. I was TD. Player 10 only played in my tournaments.
We play G/30 games. At his first tournament, having never played a rated game of Chess, he was rattled by the clock and having to keep score. He lost a few games to weak players due to poor time management, and so began his second tournament with a very low rating. In his second tournament, he played much better, scoring two 1000 point upsets.
It was a very weird tournament. I think there were a total of 6 upsets of more than 500 points. I had forgotten my computer than day, and so had to do pairings by hand. One of the players assumed that I had made a mistake when he saw that in the fifth round of a rated Swiss tournament, there was a 1600 point rating difference for one of the games. I double checked. No, there was no mistake.