GM Vadim Zvjaginsev is quietly building an impressive unbeaten streak. The 49-year-old grandmaster is up to 92 games without a single loss in classical chess, putting him in sight of the 100-game mark. Yet, instead of climbing on the rating list, the grandmaster has actually dropped 17 rating points!
Among all the amazing records in chess, GM Magnus Carlsen‘s 125-undefeated streak from 2018 to 2020 is by many considered the most impressive. The Norwegian five-time world champion broke GM Ding Liren‘s 100-game record by scoring 42 wins and 83 draws against an average opposition rating of 2745, essentially the world’s top 15 players.
Other records also exist, but with some important context: GM Bogdan Lalic played 155 games without a loss between 2010 and 2011, though against much lower-rated opposition.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to track ongoing over-the-board streaks, so one must rely on research through databases. However, 26-year-old Stefano Ferrara from Italy has done the job for Chess.com by extracting information through FIDE databases.
“I fell in love with following the top tournaments during the Candidates in Madrid in 2022, with fantastic Chess24 coverage at the time. I’ve been keeping up ever since,” he told Chess.com.
Ferrara first started sharing his statistics on Reddit, but kindly provided an updated list of the current streaks for Chess.com. While these streaks could be broken at any time, they give some fascinating insight into the players with more than 35 games without a loss.
Unbeaten Streaks per September 1, 2025:
| # | Title | Player | FED | ELO | Streak | Score | Avg Opp. | Change |
| 1 | GM | Vadim Zvjaginsev | – | 2528 | 92 | 65.5/92 | 2344 | -16.5 |
| 2 | GM | Zhou Jianchao | 2589 | 70 | 57/70 | 2243 | 18.2 | |
| 3 | GM | Manuel Petrosyan | 2567 | 70 | 52/70 | 2326 | 24.6 | |
| 4 | GM | Abhimanyu Mishra | 2611 | 56 | 36/56 | 2507 | 5.8 | |
| 5 | GM | Andrey Sumets | 2512 | 48 | 36/48 | 2348 | 22.5 | |
| 6 | GM | Sean Cuhendi | 2509 | 46 | 40/46 | 2301 | 83.9 | |
| 7 | GM | John Nunn | 2521 | 45 | 32/45 | 2278 | -33 | |
| 8 | GM | Daniil Dubov | – | 2691 | 45 | 31/45 | 2583 | -16.9 |
| 9 | GM | Jakub Kosakowski | 2549 | 43 | 32.5/43 | 2377 | 18.4 | |
| 10 | GM | Nikita Meshkovs | 2554 | 39 | 30/39 | 2358 | 20.6 | |
| 11 | GM | Yuri Kruppa | 2572 | 38 | 35/38 | 2079 | -6.5 | |
| 12 | GM | Jaime Santos Latasa | 2620 | 38 | 22.5/38 | 2533 | -7 | |
| 13 | GM | Erik Van Den Doel | 2559 | 37 | 32/38 | 2314 | -1.7 | |
| 14 | GM | Ioannis Papaioannou | 2623 | 37 | 28/37 | 2383 | -8.7 | |
| 15 | GM | Amirreza Pourramezanali | 2520 | 36 | 27.5/36 | 2332 | 23.6 | |
| 16 | GM | Jeffery Xiong | 2640 | 35 | 28.5/35 | 2375 | 5.6 | |
| 17 | GM | Sam Sevian | 2692 | 35 | 20/35 | 2641 | 2.7 | |
| 18 | GM | Karthik Venkataraman | 2571 | 35 | 27.5/35 | 2400 | 36.5 |
(Note: Inactive players are excluded from the table.)
The list is topped by Zvjaginsev, who currently sits on a remarkable run of 92 games without a loss. While remaining undefeated for so long is an impressive feat, it’s worth noting that the 49-year-old grandmaster actually performed below expectations according to the Elo rating formula during that period, dropping 17 rating points from tournaments at home in Russia.
The 49-year-old grandmaster has a peak rating of 2688 from 2012, and he was ranked 23rd in the world in 2003. He gained attention for inventing the revolutionary 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!? in 2005, a variation that would later be employed by GMs such as Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura, Richard Rapport, and Peter Svidler.
While some of his opponents are several hundred points lower rated than him, he’s also faced some top grandmasters during his streak, such as GMs Maxim Matlakov, Evgenij Najer, and Arseniy Nesterov. All games ended in relatively short draws.
Further down the list, there are a couple of players that stand out. GMs Zhou Jianchao and Manuel Petrosyan are both on a 70-game run, against even lower-rated opposition, but gained rating in that period.
Another noteworthy entry is 16-year-old GM Abhimanyu Mishra, who is currently on a 56-game run after finishing the Fujairah Global Championsip 2025 with an undefeated 5.5/9. Another is GM Sean Cuhendi from Indonesia, who has gone 46 games without losing, scoring 40 points and gaining 84 rating points in that period.
GM Daniil Dubov also remains undefeated in 2025 with his 31/45 against a pretty strong opposition of 2583. The 2018 World Rapid Champion has played six events since his last loss, against GM Xu Xiangyu in the Shenzhen Cup 2024, without a single loss. GM Samuel Sevian is also on a “hot streak” with 35 games without losing.
As Ferrara pointed out, streaks against weaker opposition can be risky:
If you play a tournament full of players who are 200 or more rating points lower than you, it’s possible to lose rating even if you score 7/9, for example, by just drawing some games. It happens to older players who are still above 2500, who usually face lower-rated players, and they lose a lot of points even if they don’t lose games.
One example is GM Yuri Kruppa, whose 38-game undefeated streak against an average opposition of just 2079, scoring 35 points, had led to a rating drop of a few points.
In light of GM Hikaru Nakamura‘s much-debated run to the Candidates by playing “Mickey Mouse tournaments,” the list also shows that facing considerably weaker opposition is no guarantee of rating gain. It also involves a risk as draws can be costly.
A number of players are in danger of losing their streaks in the next few weeks, as the FIDE Grand Swiss kicked off in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, today.
