How Many Moves In An Average Chess Game?

Among the games that have notoriously long matches, chess is definitely one of the most famous. It’s true that not every chess match takes that long, but there’s no denying some take long enough for players to get extremely tired.

There are various registries of the longest chess games ever, and it goes without saying that, no matter which is the most accurate, all of them should be long enough.

Most chess references point to the Nikolic v. Arsovic match of 1989 as the longest in the history of the sport.

According to registries, the match played in the World Junior Chess Championship in the Philippines took astonishing 269 moves before reaching its end four days after the first move!

Even more impressive, the match ended in a draw due to the 50 moves rule, even after taking an outrageous number of moves.

The Fifty-move Rule

The 50 moves rule was set to prevent players from dragging the endgame due to a clear disadvantage of material or strategy. According to the FIDE laws of chess, if no pawns move nor any piece is captured for 50 consecutive moves, the player who has the turn can call it a draw.

The number of moves is also relevant for the duration of chess matches. Official tournament matches that reach the 40 moves threshold are rewarded with an extra 30 minutes on top of the 120 minutes players already have to finish the match’s second half.

But is there an average number of moves in chess matches?

How Many Moves Is The Average Chess Game?

We know that the longest possible match would probably take a few lifetimes due to the astronomic number of possible moves. However, most chess experts agree that the average match should take around 40 moves or so to end.

We say the average because chess matches have so many variants that the number of moves can range from the two moves of the “Fool’s Mate” to the mathematical probability of 5875 moves!

The followers of the 40 Moves projection believe so due to three quite relevant aspects: Average Moves, Botvinnik’s Rule, and Critical Time.

The first states that players should, on average, take 2.5% of their time for each move.

On the other hand, Botvinnik’s rule says that only 20% of the total game time should be used in the first stage, which is also called the opening.

Finally, the Critical Time aspect refers to the fact that some moves are more critical than others and, therefore, should require more time.

No matter what aspect players choose to follow, or even if they combine all of them into the same time management strategy, the fact is that you should plan your moves to end around the 40 moves range.

So, plan your time wisely, as the more critical moves should make good use of the little time you save with each of the so-called ‘easier’ or more ‘automatic’ moves.