Exeter Chess Club Stories: Time for a quick game?

From: jberry@islandnet.com (Jonathan Berry)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc
Subject: Re: Shortest Tournament Games

In article ,
asdmm4@UAA.ALASKA.EDU wrote:
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|But even this has been improved on by a game (Miles-Reuben) that went:
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|1. Draw agreed
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I believe that the best of these games was Hubner - Rogoff from
a World Youth (Under-26?) Team Championship, maybe circa 1970.
In those days of adjournments, Hubner had a long long long
game.  Germany was due to play USA the next round, and Hubner
obviously wanted to rest instead.  But the team captain said they
really needed his strength or at least his presence on top
board.  So Hubner said OK, but only if you let me make a draw.
The captain agreed, because that would boost his team's lineup
on the remaining boards.  But Hubner, being a man of some
principle, didn't want it ever to appear that this might have
been a real game, so he offered to Rogoff (a very strong
player, but not quite in Hubner's class) that they draw without
any moves being played.  So:

1. Draw agreed.

However, the arbiters did not like this and refused the game.
So Hubner and Rogoff put together a scoresheet of a game which
began something like this:

1.b3 g6 2.Na3 Bg7 3.Rb1 Ba1 4.Bb2 Nh6 5.Bg7 Rg8 6.Bh8 Bg7 and
so on ... Draw.

The arbiters were not amused.  They *insisted* that the two
play some real moves.  Rogoff agreed, Hubner didn't.
Hubner 0-1 Rogoff, which makes this game the answer to the
trivia question:

"Which game was the shortest draw in chess history and also the
shortest decisive game?"

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