Bobby Fischer at Herceg Novi 1970

Well, I originally wanted to write that Fischer had the greatest chess performance in all of history. But, that wasn’t meant to be. You see, one of the participants in Herceg Novi 1970 didn’t have a rating. At least that’s the way it was for a while. So, I assumed Predrag Ostojic (the one participant without a rating) was a grandmaster. In 1968, he became an International Master, and in 1975, he became a Grandmaster. But, what was his rating in April of 1970? That’s what I really needed to know because Fischer’s G-score in this tournament depended on it.

So, I will cut to the chase. I found the ratings list for the top 500 players from July 1970, and Ostojic’s rating was 2430. So, now that I had his actual rating, that’s what I had to use. When I used 2500, Fischer’s G-score was just over 400 — a feat I have never seen before (and I have been chasing the best chess performances for a long time now). With Ostojic’s rating at 2430, Fischer’s G-score for this event comes down a little bit to just below 397. Steinitz is still #1 for his 7–0 route of Blackburne (who was #2 at the time). But, this is still good enough to oust Tarrasch as the #1 tournament performance of all time!!

So, now I have updated my G-score list. This is the best of the best. I won’t display the whole thing because it’s so unwieldy. But, here are the 300’s, which are the Generationally Great and the Historically Great performances.

For those who rank Kasparov as #1 without question, I implore you to look here at this list of the best…