Marathoner

2026

Your games go the distance. Slow time controls, long endgames and a habit of playing on until the position is truly finished.

What a Marathoner is

A Marathoner does not hurry. Some play classical or daily chess, where a game can take an evening or a week; others play faster controls but never resign early and squeeze every endgame to the last pawn. Either way the games are long, the decisions are deliberate and the results come from patience. It is the opposite of the coffeehouse blitz session, and it shows in the numbers. Marathoners are the players who still remember the move they found after twenty minutes of thinking.

How Chess Year spots it

There are two ways to qualify. One is time control: classical and daily games together make up at least 40% of your standard games. The other is length: your games average 90 half-moves or more, about 45 moves each. Whichever of the two is stronger counts, and the further past the line, the stronger the personality. As with every personality, you need at least 20 games in the year.

What your story shows

The time-control card shows how much of your year was slow chess, and the highlights card finds your longest game by number of moves, with a link to open it on the site where it was played. The endings card shows how your games finished, and for a Marathoner it often has fewer resignations and more games played to the end.

Close relatives

Long games tend to bring draws, so a Marathoner can also score as a Peacemaker; slow players who improve a lot may come out as a Climber. The strongest trait wins the card. Hours at the board are counted with a cap of four hours per game, and daily games do not count towards hours, so a correspondence Marathoner's hours card stays realistic.