It happened at the Paul Keres Chess House in Tallinn, in the second round of the Estonian Team Championship in classical chess, on 7 February 2026. Until recently, these championships were played with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 15 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment per move. Quite often, games stretched well beyond five hours, which, with two rounds per day, caused obvious organisational headaches. As a result, from the season before last, the time control was shortened to 90 minutes for the entire game, still with a 30-second increment from move one.
Under these conditions, a “classical” game now typically lasts 40–50 moves, about 3 hours 40–50 minutes, or at most four hours in a 60-move battle. This allows organisers to plan a neat nine-hour playing day: two four-hour rounds with a one-hour lunch break in between.
Modern FIDE rules also do little to encourage endless play. I was aware of the fifty-move rule without pawn moves or captures, but I believed there were exceptions for positions where a win requires more moves. As for the seventy-five-move rule, under which a draw is declared automatically by the arbiter — I had no idea it even existed.
So my own game turned out to be educational.
Kirill Gorkov (2161) – Valeriy Golubenko (2179) began at 10:00 in the morning and lasted 228 full moves (456 half-moves). At the moment when the arbiter was obliged to stop the game under the seventy-five-move rule, the clocks showed exactly 18 minutes remaining for White and 11 minutes 8 seconds for Black. In other words, the game lasted 90 + 90 + 228 − 18 − 11 = 379 minutes, or 6 hours and 19 minutes, finally ending not at the expected 14:00, but at 16:19. We then spent another five minutes signing eight scoresheets.
Most of the tournament participants — apart from the two “Gos” — had returned from lunch at 15:00 to start the next round, only to discover, to their amazement, that our game was still very much alive. I seized the moment, handed my empty water bottle to a teammate, and he refilled it. That was my second wind.
As the clock approached four o’clock, the situation increasingly began to resemble a spectacle. Kirill and I were surrounded by other tournament participants — after all, they had nothing else to do. Phones came out, people started filming, and it was clear that chess history was unfolding right there, before their very eyes.
In this photograph [by GM Aleksandr Volodin] we see the position after White’s 190th move Qf6+, as well as the clock readings: 13:06 for White and 3:38 for Black. This means that at the moment captured in the photo, the game had lasted 90 + 90 + 189:30 − 13:06 − 3:38 = 352:46, that is, 5 hours, 52 minutes and 46 seconds.
I can’t speak for my opponent, but I personally was very far from thinking about records. First, I believed the record was somewhere around 250 moves — not wildly wrong, as it turns out, given the 269-move Nikolić–Arsović game from 1989, which I didn’t know about at the time. Second, I was desperately trying to finish my game as quickly as possible: I still had another round to play, and there was no substitute for me! In a short five-round team event, every game is priceless, and we were the reigning champions, with no intention of giving up our title.
I was convinced that I had a winning endgame — queen and knigh pawn against queen — and I was steadily shepherding my pawn from b6 to b2. How wrong I was! It turns out that until the knight pawn reaches the seventh rank, these positions are all drawn. I promise to show you why — just not today.
Today, I will analyse in detail the final position, in which Black (that is, me!) mates in 39 moves — but was prevented from doing so by the seventy-five-move rule. Long before the final, 228th move, I tried to accumulate time and concentrate on finding a forced win, but nothing concrete appeared. Time slipped away too quickly, panic set in once I dropped below a minute, and I reverted to making quick moves just to rebuild the clock.
Only later, with the help of the Nalimov tablebases, did I discover that the final position is mate in 39 — meaning that the second queen appears roughly twenty five moves down the line. Only then did I truly understand just how devilishly difficult this win really is.
Here is the full notation of the game:
In part two of this article I will briefly comment on the game, and try to understand how, having obtained an advantage with Black as early as move three, I managed to drag the affair out all the way to move 229. After each move, I will give the evaluation according to Stockfish 18 or the Nalimov Tablebases.
And when we finally reach the last position, I will show you exactly how it is won.
| Advertising |
.jpeg)
.jpeg)