The 7 most illegal chess moves of all time

7: Korchnoi-Karpov, World Championship, Game 21, Moscow 1974
Let’s start with one of the classics of chess history. In the 21st game of his 1974 World Championship match in Moscow, a strong novelty soon earned Viktor the Terrible a clearly winning position:

6: Zaragatski – NN, NRW Championship blitz tournament, 1997, Hiddenhausen

5: Grischuk – Avrukh, Saint Vincent 2005 and Vallejo – Gelfand, Leon 2010

4: Steiner – Colle, Budapest 1926
Another widespread kind of illegal move can be seen in the following three examples, which share fourth place. I christen this motif… a “piece beam” ©

3: Torre – Reti, Baden Baden 1925 and Kindermann – Korchnoi

Another well-known type of disallowed move takes third place in our top list. The motif here is illegal castling!

2: Kholmov – Lutivkov, Dubna 1976

1: Azmaiparashvili – Ivanchuk, 1994 and Romanovsky – Kasparyan, 1938
The first and best place on our rating list goes to two examples of exceptional sneakiness and trickery from players with the black pieces. Sadly the swindles were ultimately found out.