Iran's grandmaster of chess, 28-year-old Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, claims to have broken the Guinness world record for simultaneous games yesterday in Tehran, according to AFP. Maghami faced 614 opponents in just over 25 hours — winning 590, or 96 percent of the games. He also paced around the tables for a total of 34 miles.

If approved by the World Chess Federation, Maghami would unseat the former champ, Israeli Alik Gershon, who in October had overtaken another Iranian chess player for the Guinness record. After the marathon day of chess games, Maghami told reporters:

"Iran is great and deserves the best. Let's not talk politics... even if this record was held by another person, I would have gone all out to break it."

[AFP; Getty]