Background
International Chess Day took place recently on the 20th of July. To help celebrate it's 100th Anniversary, FIDE organised a worldwide Guinness World Record attempt for the most chess games played in 24 hours.
Hundreds of officially recognised in-person events all over the world were organised where people could come and play games that would count towards the record. The full list can be seen on the official website. In addition, chess.com and lichess.org organised online events for those who did not have an in-person event nearby.
Noticing, with only 3 weeks till the day, that there were no events organised in Ireland (the home of Guinness!), the Drogheda Chess Club rushed to prepare Ireland's in-person contribution with a full day of chess in Scotch Hall Shopping Centre. By choosing to hold it in such a public space, the club hoped to increase public awareness and interest in chess as well as help set the global record.
Venue
Activities & Formats
The Club submitted five formats to FIDE for the record attempt: an all-day Rapid (Open and U1700), a morning Blitz, an afternoon Blitz, and an all-day Simultaneous Exhibition. On the day, the Rapid sections were amalgamated. In all formats, the emphasis was on public engagement and fun. The event started at 10 a.m. and ran until 5 p.m. Participants could dip in and out throughout the day if they wished. The standings of the Rapid and Blitz can be seen here. Note that forfeited games did not count towards the record.
We have provided a selection of images and videos from the event below. More photos can be found on the Drogheda Chess Club Facebook Page and the Drogheda Chess Club Website.
As one can see from the video, the event was well attended throughout the day with great public participation.
Rapid (Open)
The Rapid, running for 7 rounds with the time control being 10+5, contributed 102 games from 95 participants.
Morning Blitz & Afternoon Blitz
The Morning Blitz, running for 7 rounds the time control being 5+3, contributed 32 games from 17 participants. The Afternoon Blitz running for 6 rounds with the same time control, contributed 38 games from 24 participants.
Simultaneous Exhibition
Organisers and members of the Drogheda Chess Club staged an all-day simultaneous exhibition against all comers. This was the most popular format with the public contributing 100 games from 100 participants.
Total Games Played
In total, there was 272 games played from 168 participants, the vast majority from members of the public. Worldwide, as of writing this report, chess.com has reported that the record was broken with an initial count of 5.4 million games. FIDE declared that "By 8 pm CEST, FIDE achieved 5.4 million games played, with a few more hours to go. The final numbers will be known later".
24/7/24 Update: The total number of games played was 7,284,970. Source
Acknowledgements
The Drogheda Chess Club would like to thank all those who helped organise and run the event, in particular Chief Organiser Frank Pentony, Chief Arbiter John Loughran, Arbiter Krzysztof Nowak and the Drogheda Chess Club Organising Committee (all pictured). We'd like to thank Scotch Hall Shopping Centre for their wonderful venue and all their amazing staff. We'd like to thank the ICU for support and Chairman Desmond Beatty for attending and adding to the record! We'd like to thank Drogheda Millmount Museum for the use of their chairs. Finally we'd like to thank all the helpers on the day that made it possible.