The Greatest Tournament Performances Of All Time

Every chess player dreams of playing a brilliant move or a spectacular game. More serious players hope to put together a masterful tournament and claim first prize. Yet, it's only the best of the best who can lay claim to have played the best tournament ever. Was it Emanuel Lasker's perfect 13- 0 in New York in 1893 or GM Bobby Fischer's famous 11-0 U.S. Championship in 1963? Was it the best performance of a modern World Champion like GM Garry Kasparov or GM Magnus Carlsen? We will examine some of the greatest tournaments of all time, using Chess.com's CAPS scores to resolve the question of the greatest tournament ever played!

• What are CAPS Scores?
• The Nominees
• Honorable Mentions
• Topalov's World Championship
• Karpov's Best
• Kasparov's Best
• Niemann's Amazing Tournament
• Carlsen's Record

What Are CAPS Scores?

Computer Aggregated Precision Score, or CAPS for short, is a tool to evaluate the quality of moves in any chess game or series of games. The CAPS system ranks any performance between 0 (blunders nearly every move) and 100, which is perfect chess. Our guide to CAPS scores has more details about how they are calculated.

One benefit of CAPS is that it doesn't factor in players' Elo ratings, so we can review events from all eras of chess history based solely on the quality of a player's moves.

The Nominees

To determine the greatest performance ever, we evaluated some of the most famous tournament victories ever achieved. In chronological order, these include:

• Lasker's 13/13 in New York, 1893
• Lasker's 16/20 New York, 1924
• Fischer's 11/11 in the 1963-64 U.S. Championship
• Karpov's 11/13 in Linares, 1994
• Kasparov's 10.5/14 in Linares, 1999
• Kasparov's 7.5/10 in Linares, 2001
• Topalov's 10/14 in the 2005 FIDE World Championship
• Carlsen's 8/10 in Pearl Spring, 2009
• Caruana's 8.5/10 at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup
• Carlsen's 8/11 in Croatia, 2019
• Carlsen's 7.5/9 in the 2019 Grenke Chess Classic
• Niemann's 8/9 in the 2023 Tournament Of Peace
• Gukesh's 9/10 in the 45th Chess Olympiad
• Erigaisi's 10/11 in the 45th Chess Olympiad

Honorable Mentions

Before we get to the winners, let's examine a few amazing performances that failed to top the list.

Not surprisingly, Lasker's performances from more than 100 years ago were the least accurate results, with CAPS performances of 90.6 and 91.1. Clearly, it takes higher accuracy to dominate a top event today than it did back then. Fischer's perfect U.S. Championship was also amazing for its time, but his 94.6 doesn't stand out among the modern contenders.

Amazingly, it's higher than the next most famous American winning streak. Somewhat surprisingly, GM Fabiano Caruana's Sinqufield Cup in 2014, an event in which he won the first seven consecutive games against Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and others, is one of the least accurate events in the field, with a CAPS score of 94.5.

The recent dominant Olympiad performances by Gukesh Dommaraju and Arjun Erigaisi were also impressive but didn't quite make the top five, with scores of 95.4 and 95.6, respectively.

#5 Veselin Topalov in the 2005 FIDE World Championship

• Score: 10/14
• CAPS: 95.8

Going into the FIDE World Championship in 2005, most people were betting on some combination of GMs Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, and Peter Leko, but it was considered an open field where those three, or perhaps a dark horse could take the title. After the first half of the event, everyone but Topalov was playing for second place. He scored 6.5/7 to start the tournament and cruised to an easy first place. Played shortly after Kasparov's retirement, Topalov's attacking chess helped him lay a strong claim as the best in the game.

Topalov may have known it was his event when his extremely provocative opening play led to a powerful win as Black in the very first round.

#4 Anatoly Karpov in Linares, 1994

• Score: 11/13
• CAPS: 95.9

By 1994, GM Anatoly Karpov had failed to win five matches against Kasparov and seemed on the tail end of his brilliant career. However, that was when he unleashed his most dominant chess. Against a field that included Kasparov, Anand, Topalov, GM Vladimir Kramnik, and other elite players, Karpov went undefeated, winning nine games. He finished the tournament 2.5 points ahead of Kasparov, his nearest rival.

Even after clinching first, Karpov won a stylish final-round game. GM Alexander Beliavsky resigned on move 20, as there's no way to save the a4-knight.

# 3 Garry Kasparov in Linares, 2001

• Score: 7.5/10
• CAPS: 96

Kasparov has won more tournaments than any other top player. According to CAPS, his greatest accomplishment was in 2001 in Linares, an event that he won a record nine times. In 2001, Kasparov won five games, lost none, and finished a full three points clear of the field. Surprisingly, everyone else finished tied for second with 4.5/10. 

The game above was the last decisive classical game in the long rivalry between Kasparov and Karpov. Believe it or not, it was their 166th classical game against each other! Kasparov described it as "one of my most memorable. By energetic and consistent play I was able to exploit Karpov's opening error (by no means always did this happen), and in addition, the win made me the sole leader after the first cycle." (Kasparov vs Karpov: 1988 - 2009) That lead only grew over the rest of the tournament.

#2 Hans Niemann in the 2023 Tournament Of Peace

• Score: 8/9
• CAPS: 96.8

It's clear that the top players are getting more accurate over time, so it shouldn't be surprising that an event from 2023 is near the top of the list. What might shock some readers is that it's not from a past world champion but from someone aiming to be a future champion, GM Hans Niemann. Niemann crushed the field in last year's Tournament of Peace, scoring 8/9 and winning by three points over his nearest rivals. After the event, with dominance reminiscent of Fischer's famous 11-0 U.S. Championship, Niemann leaned into the comparison.

Two lone Americans up against the world, facing immeasurable odds

Victorious 53 years apart at the legendary Tournament of Peace

8/9: 2946 performance rating

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible pic.twitter.com/qjZlhRIYJp

— Hans Niemann (@HansMokeNiemann) November 30, 2023

While few expected such a dominant result at the time, Niemann justified it in the following year, raising his rating from 2659 to his current 2734.

#1 Magnus Carlsen in the Croatian leg of the 2019 Grand Chess Tour

• Score: 8/11
• CAPS: 97

Did you really expect anyone else to top this list? Carlsen has the highest Elo of all time for a reason. He's clearly the most accurate chess player ever.

In this tournament, Magnus defeated GMs Ding Liren, Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave while not losing a single game. Carlsen even scored his first-ever classical win against Nepomniachtchi in this event after losing their first four decisive games.

Are there any dominant tournament performances that we missed? Let us know in the comments.