Games - Viktor Korchnoi

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	Games - Viktor Korchnoi

Viktor Korchnoi (also Korchnoy, Kortchnoy, Kortschnoj, etc) (Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й), born March 23 1931 in Leningrad, USSR, is currently the oldest active grandmaster on the world tournament circuit.

Korchnoi is a four times USSR chess champion (1960, 1962-63, 1964-65, 1970), two times winner of the interzonal tournaments for world championship, winner of two Candidates Tournaments (1977, 1980) and five time European champion. Victor Korchnoi played three matches with Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Championship (two official matches in 1978 and 1981, and the 1974 Candidates' Final which later won Karpov the title by forfeit against Bobby Fischer). He also became a six time Chess Olympiad winner as a member of the Soviet team.

Early career

Korchnoi graduated from Leningrad State University with major in History.

He learned to play chess from his father at the age of seven. In 1943, he joined the chess club of the Leningrad Pioneer Palace, and was trained by Abram Modelj, Andrej Batujev und Vladimir Zak. 1947, he won the youth championship of the USSR, and in 1951 he earned the Master title. One year later he, for the first time, qualified for the USSR Chess Championship, which he won four times throughout his career (1960, 1962, 1964, 1970). He was awarded the title of International Master by FIDE in 1954, and the title of Grandmaster in 1956.

Rising into prominence within the Russian chess school system he was competing with the stars such as Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky, following in the path laid out by Mikhail Botvinnik. As a result, Korchnoi never reached the same heights as his compatriots, but many people consider him the strongest player to never have become world champion, an honour equally often attributed to Paul Keres. When Spassky beat Petrosian to claim the World Title in 1969, the Russian chess federation started pursuing a youth policy which largely classed Korchnoi and Smyslov as the old vanguard and as a consequence they were overlooked when it came to distributing of opportunities to play in international chess tournaments.

A Russian Grandmaster

Korchnoi's playing style initially was an aggressive counter-attack. He excelled in difficult defensive positions. During the sixties he became more of an all-rounder, mastering all the required techniques like Bobby Fischer and Petrosian. Korchnoi's mood largely dictated his plan for the game. He was comfortable playing with and without the initiative. He could attack, counterattack, play positionally, and was a master of the endgame. He became known as the master of counter-attack, and strangely enough he was Mikhail Tal's (an out-and-out attacker) most difficult opponent. He has a lifetime plus record against Tal, as well as against world champions Petrosian and Spassky. He has tied records against Botvinnik and Bobby Fischer, and has beaten at one point or another, every post-war world champion except Vladimir Kramnik.

Korchnoi reached the Candidates Final, the match to determine the next challenger to Bobby Fischer scheduled for 1975. His opponent was a friend (they had played a training match together some months before), and the newest star of the Russian chess-school, Anatoly Karpov. Karpov won this phenomenal contest, played in 1974 in Moscow, and by default became the next World Champion when Fischer refused to defend his title.

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