What chess records may never be broken?

Panno resigned to protest the organizers decision to reschedule the games to accomodate Fischer's desire not to play on Saturdays (religious reasons). 

I doubt that Fischer's record as the highest ratings lead over the 2nd highest rated player will ever be broken. Fischer was rated 125 points ahead of Spassky in 1972 - and people say that Gelfand wasn't good enough to play Anand! 

Fischer's ELO was 125 points higher than the #2 player in the world (world champion Spassky) in the July 1972 rating list.

That large a gap between the #1 and everybody else will never happen again.

EDIT: oops, feygoner had the same thought and beat me to it.

Fischer broke that record and in a World Championship match!

Fischer's win streak against all GMs (20) and his winning two candidates matches with 100% scores and winning a National championship with 100% . What about losing rating points for winning the world championship ?  

Anand just had that distinction.

some of these are stored in a vault   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Records    probably never will be broken, especially after they switched to vinyl.

Technically, Anand was defending the World Championship, not winning it.  I am sure a number of World Champions have lost rating points defending their title.

"Steinitz won 25 tournament games in a row once, but the opposition wasn't nearly as strong"

It was strong enough, ten of those 25 games were played against the player ranked #2 at Chessmetrics, Blackburne. Also many of the other opponents were top ten at the time. Taimanov and Larsen were obviosuly stronger objectively speaking, but relatively speaking they were weaker than Blackburne.

"How about Capablanca going 10 years (1914-1924) without a single loss? In my mind, that ranks at least as good as Fischer's winning streaks"

It was eight years between the losses to Chajes in 1916 and Reti in 1924, in between he played little, so impressive as it was for example Kramnik had a much longer undefeated streak counting games played (and in super tournaments only), and Tal had a couple of streaks even longer than Kramnik's.

I think Kasparov's never finishing behind another player for a period of ten years, between 1981 and 1991, never will be broken. Kasparov played quite a lot those years, against very strong opposition, and never finishing behind another player for so many years in a row is incredible. Also his winning ten super tournaments in a row around the turn of the century is a record I think never will be beaten. Just look at how hard it is also for great players and World Champions like Anand and Kramnik to line up tournament wins, ten in a row is just too much. Even Carlsen has "only" managed 11 wins in his 16 latest tournaments, and improving on that is hard enough.

Petrosian lost very few games, anyone know what his longest streak without a loss was?   Alekhine had a streak where he was winning a lot tournaments, however he refused to play in any tournament that allowed Capablanca to participate.

I had 131/2 - 1/2 in a USCCC Finals but unfortunately that 1/2  

Steinitz and his 25 games while wonderful--do not compare to Fischer and his 19 or 20 games because of the competition.

Kasparov became the youngest at 22 to win the WCC by defeating Kasparov in 1985. This might never be broken.

I thought Carlsen would have broken this one this year...but he refused to play in the Candidates.

What about Kasparov being World #1 (Elo) for 255 months?

He was World #1 from 1985 to 2005 when he retired (almost consecutively).

Awesome.  I don't think anyone will even come close. 

Tragic Opening Preparation Record: Frank Marshall...8 years of preparing the old school Marshall Gambit in the Ruy Lopez with Nf6 instead of the modern c6.    Capablanca did not back down and refuted him over the board... the rest is history.

I think that the 8 years thing is a myth. Do you have any sources that can confirm it?

Wait a minute. Is this implying that a player can castle twice in one game, if his king and rooks end up in the right positions a second time?  If so, that's a new one on me.  

Yeah, I think theres' something wrong with that particular game.  It's even fairly recent too (1973).  Perhaps they are indeed illegal moves, but they were played and recorded on the scoresheet anyway because neither players realized they were.  I'd be interested in knowing what their FIDE rating were, since that could shed some light to the situation.