<In terms of number of moves, the quickest mate possible in chess is known as Fool's mate (1.g4 e5 2.f3?? Qh4# and variants thereof). This has been known to occur in amateur play. ChessGames.com gives a game L. Darling-R. Wood, 1983 (1.g4 e6 2.f4?? Qh4#).[4] Bill Wall lists, in addition to Darling-Wood, three other games that ended with Black checkmating on the second move.[5] In a tournament game at odds of pawn and move, White delivered checkmate on move 2: W. Cooke-"R____g", Cape Town Chess Club handicap tournament 1908 (remove Black's f-pawn) 1.e4 g5?? 2.Qh5#.[6] The same game had previously been played in Leeky-Mason, Dublin 1867.[7]

The shortest decisive game ever played in master play that was decided because of the position on the board (i.e. not because of a forfeit or protest) is Z. Đorđević – M. Kovačević, Bela Crkva 1984. It lasted only three moves (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c6 3.e3?? Qa5+ winning the bishop), and White resigned.[2][8][9] This was repeated in Vassallo-Gamundi, Salamanca 1998.[2] (In a number of other games, White has played on after 3...Qa5+, occasionally even drawing the game.)[10]

There have been many forfeited games (which could technically be regarded as losses in zero moves), the most notable examples being Game 2 of the 1972 world championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, which Fischer defaulted,[11] and Game 5 of the 2006 world championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, which Kramnik defaulted.[12] A game between Fischer and Oscar Panno, played at the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 1970, went 1. c4 resigns. Panno refused to play to protest the organizers' rescheduling of the game to accommodate Fischer's desire not to play on his religion's Sabbath. Panno was not present when the game was to begin. Fischer waited ten minutes before making his move and went to get Panno to convince him to play. Fifty-two minutes had elapsed on Panno's clock before he came to the board and resigned.[13][14] (At the time, an absence of sixty minutes resulted in a forfeit.)[15]

Under recently instituted FIDE rules, a player who is late for the beginning of a round loses the game, as does a player whose cellphone makes any sound in the tournament hall. The former rule was used at the 2009 Chinese Championship to forfeit Hou Yifan for arriving five seconds late for the beginning of a round.[16] The latter rule was used to forfeit Aleksander Delchev against Stuart Conquest after the move 1.d4 in the 2009 European Team Championship.[17]

The German grandmaster Robert Hübner also lost a game without playing any moves. In a World Student Team Championship game played in Graz in 1972, Hübner played one move and offered a draw to Kenneth Rogoff, who accepted. However, the arbiters insisted that some moves be played, so the players played the following ridiculous game: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Ng1 Bg7 4. Qa4 0-0 5. Qxd7 Qxd7 6. g4 Qxd2+ 7. Kxd2 Nxg4 8. b4 a5 9. a4 Bxa1 10. Bb2 Nc6 11. Bh8 Bg7 12. h4 axb4 draw agreed). The arbiters ruled that both players must apologize and play an actual game at 7 p.m. Rogoff appeared and apologized; Hübner did neither. Hübner's clock was started, and after an hour Rogoff was declared the winner.[18] The young star players Wang Chen and Lu Shanglei both lost a game in which they had played no moves. They agreed to a draw without play at the 2009 Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Cup International Open Chess Tournament held in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, China. The chief arbiter declared both players to have lost the game.[19]

"Their ratings coming into the tournament were 1640 and 1658 respectively, but the rating system was quite different in 1959. Those would probably be equivalent to 1200-1300 today."

I do have a citation for the crosstable on the collection page, but just to make it clear:

CN-3295: http://en.chessbase.com/post/edward...-

(

<CG> munches link above. Add a trailing "-" to the url, or copy this

en.chessbase.com/post/edward-winter-presents-uns-
olved-che-mysteries-6-

Ah that doesn't work either, due to <CG> line truncating. OK, as they say in Maine "You can't get there from here!"

)

and also here:

and this link:

http://turot.altervista.org/matto-d...

which has the Oct 20 1959 CL article, makes mention of a 1936 US Open game involving a master that took only 5 moves.

W C Arnold (kibitz #1)

As for Mayfield - Trinks, Spence does not include it in his tournament book.

We do know this:

1) Mayfield and Trinks were paired round 12 of the US Open at Omaha, 1959;

2) Mayfield is credited with winning the game;

3) Koltanowski reported that the result was a three-move win for Mayfield.

RE: Question about Koltanowski...

Well, who was the TD at Omaha?

I do not know the the exact method used in 1959 to report results, but in a large Swiss System tournament such as the US Open it probably involved one or both players notifying the tournament direction staff by handing in a copy of the score at a designated location. We know of such collections of scoresheets because Spence often speaks of having been given access to them..

Normally, there is no question about the scores. But this in not a normal game, and should set off some red flags.

Trinks was not a very good player, but he was experienced and no idiot. It seems very unlikely he would fall for this unawares.

This was the final of a 12-round tournament. Unless you've played in one, you don't know how grueling that is. Players are known to get goofy in the last round. I know. I've been there.

Since the directing staff in all likelihood did not observe the game, there was nothing to stop the players from handing in this score as a joke. Or for Mayfield alone to do so when Trinks didn't show up, having left the tournament early without telling anybody. I've been in that situation too, and it is very tempting to hand in the score of Morphy vs. Duke or something.

At this point the game, incredible though it might appear, seems to be legit. If only because of Koltanowski (and the lack of any contravening evidence).

On the other hand, it could easily be as <phony> says, turned in as a scoresheet but not actually played on the board.

Or Trinks could have deliberately played it out, just wanting to have a day off.

2) +1.11 (35 ply) 2.d4 h6

3) +1.03 (34 ply) 2.h4 gxh4 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qd3 Nc6 6.Bg5 h3 7.gxh3 f5 8.Nc3 Qd7 9.Rg1 fxe4 10.Qxe4 Qf5 11.Qxf5 Bxf5 12.O-O-O Bf6 13.Bxf6 Nxf6 14.d5 Ne5 15.Nxe5 dxe5 16.Rg5 Bg6 17.Bb5+ Nd7 18.Rxe5 a6 19.Bxd7+ Kxd7 20.a3 Raf8 21.Rde1