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Viktor Korchnoi
Fearless Competitor of World Chess
 Viktor Lvovich
Korchnoi is one of the giants of 20th and 21st century chess, contesting
three matches that determined the destination of the world championship and
winning games against no fewer than eight world champions: Botvinnik, Tal,
Smyslov, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. (His
lifetime score against Tal, for example, was an overwhelming 13 wins with 6
losses and 29 draws.) He additionally registered plus scores against
Petrosian and Spassky and was level with Botvinik and Fischer.
Korchnoi also set
various records for longevity of elite chess performance and in this regard
he can be rivaled only by his hero Emanuel Lasker and by Vassily Smyslov.
He remains the world’s oldest active Grandmaster in 2006, still with a
super-GM rating of 2610.
Viktor Korchnoi
became a Swiss citizen but was born in Leningrad (formerly and subsequently
known as St.Petersburg) and endured the infamous siege of that city during
the Second World War. It may be no coincidence that throughout his
long chess career, Korchnoi’s style was marked by an extraordinary tenacity
and a will to win, often choosing to take the role of defender in the
expectation of launching a successful counter-attack.
He learned chess
at six years old and attended chess training in Leningrad. He was
awarded the International Master title in 1954 and the Grandmaster title in
1956. He won the Leningrad Championship for the first of three times
in 1955; he won the Soviet championship four times between 1959 and 1970.
His uncompromising
approach, disdaining the ‘Grandmaster draw’, yielded a number of notable
performances in international tournaments - he took part in 90 of them
between 1954 and 1990, winning (or sharing) first prize 40 times and coming
outside the top three only seven times. Two striking wins were Gyula
1965, 5½ points ahead of the second prizewinner, and Palma 1968, 3 points
ahead of a field that included Petrosian and Spassky.
Korchnoi competed
in the World Championship Candidates’ Tournament in 1962 and Candidates’
Matches in 1968. After Spassky won the World Chess Championship in
1969, the Soviet chess authorities followed a policy of encouraging players
of the younger generation, so the more senior players of Korchnoi’s age
found it harder to obtain invitations to foreign tournaments.
Following
Fischer’s defeat of Spassky for the World Chess Championship in 1972,
Korchnoi qualified from the next Interzonal Tournament at Leningrad in 1973.
He then defeated Mecking and Petrosian in short
matches to meet the golden boy of Soviet chess, Anatoly Karpov, in the
Candidates’ Final, to whom he lost. In the end, Fischer could not
agree terms for a match and his title was awarded to Karpov in 1975.
|
Anatoly Karpov
|
The Soviet
authorities allowed Korchnoi to compete at the Amsterdam international
tournament in 1976; a good showing by Korchnoi would reinforce the view that
Karpov was a worthy champion. Indeed, Korchnoi won the tournament
jointly with Tony Miles, but he also took the opportunity to defect to the
West. This was the first ever chess defection to the West by a high
ranking Soviet Grandmaster, although a trend had been set beforehand in
other cultural spheres such as ballet.
Settling at
first in the Netherlands, he launched his next assault on the world
title with renewed vigour, smashing through the elite of world chess
to face Karpov for a championship contest at Baguio in 1978.
Karpov built up an early lead, at one point scoring 5-2 in the
first-to-six-wins match. Korchnoi fought back to level terms,
but after 32 games, marked by extraordinary tension and off-stage
antics by the retinues of each player, Korchnoi lost the match by a
single point.
|
Korchnoi’s
next assault on the world championship against his now hated
arch-rival Karpov came in 1981 at Merano. Once again Korchnoi
had swept his way past leading grandmasters - Petrosian, Polugaevsky
and Spassky - to face his old enemy. However, on this occasion,
Karpov was much better prepared than in the previous two encounters
and, at the age of thirty, had attained the peak of his form.
Korchnoi was by
now already fifty, though what he lacked in stamina he certainly made up for
in sheer determination and will to win. Nevertheless, the match turned
out to be a disaster for the older man, who was perhaps distracted by his
campaign to be joined by his wife and son, still in the USSR. After a
mere 18 games had been played, Korchnoi had been defeated by the score of
six wins to two, with ten draws. So dramatic was the course of this
bitter contest, that it provided much of the inspiration for the Tim
Rice/ABBA musical CHESS.
| The grand old man
continued to compete as a Candidate; in 1983, he faced the rising star Garry
Kasparov in the semi-final. The USSR chess federation refused to allow
their player to compete in the USA, where the match had originally been
scheduled, thus causing Kasparov to default. Korchnoi magnanimously
agreed to rearrange the match in London but, sadly, he was then annihilated
by his much younger rival. |
Garry Kasparov |
Worse, Vassily Smyslov, now 62 to
Korchnoi’s 52, proceeded to the final of the world qualifier, thus
overshadowing Korchnoi’s reputation for age/performance records. On
the plus side, the Soviet policy of boycott against Korchnoi was officially
abandoned after Korchnoi’s generosity.
|
 |
He
was unwell during the 1985 Candidates’ Tournament, but bounced back to win
strong tournaments including a first place at Vienna 1986, ahead of Karpov.
He also competed in the Candidates’ matches of 1988 and 1991.
Korchnoi has been
a dangerous opponent at the highest level for more than four decades and is
never to be ruled out as a candidate for top honours among any company.
Of a perennially nervous and suspicious disposition, he nevertheless
mellowed after the fall of the USSR and in his later years has been a
frequent visitor to Russian events, not least in his former home town of St.
Petersburg. Korchnoi is the author of several books on chess,
including his 1977 autobiography Chess is My Life, recently
re-issued. However, it is always as a fighter and player rather than
writer that he will be remembered.
|
Fischer - Korchnoi
Curacao Candidates’ Tournament 1962
Pirc Defence
1 e4 d6 2
d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6 4 f4 Bg7 5 Nf3 0-0 6 Be2
       
  
 
 
    
Nowadays, and
partly as a result of this game, 6.Bd3 and 6.Be3 are both considered more
effective.
6 ... c5 7
dxc5 Qa5 8 0-0 Qxc5+ 9 Kh1 Nc6 10 Nd2
Before this
game, the diagrammed position was considered favourable for White, e.g.
10...Be6 11 Nb3 Qb6 12 g4 when White has a dangerous attack.
However, when preparing for the Candidates’ tournament with Vasiukov,
Korchnoi found a new counterattacking idea:
10 ... a5!
This is the new
idea. White’s best response is 11 Nc4, hoping, by a subsequent 12
Be3, to exploit the slight weakness that has arisen on b6. Fischer,
however, does not perceive the difference the a-pawn thrust makes to
Black’s defensive resources. He therefore proceeds along the same lines as
the attacking line given above.
11 Nb3 Qb6
12 a4 Nb4 13 g4
The natural
attacking move, but it meets with a startling refutation.
13 ...
Bxg4! 14 Bxg4 Nxg4 15 Qxg4 Nxc2 16 Nb5
Fischer tries to
maintain material parity. Korchnoi was more concerned by the
sacrificial line 16.Nd5, though after 16...Qxb3 17.Nxe7+ Kh8 18.f5 Nxa1 19.f6 Bxf6 20.Rxf6 Rfe8 21.Nd5 Qc4 Black has everything under control.
16 ... Nxa1
17 Nxa1 Qc6 18 f5 Qc4 19 Qf3 Qxa4 20 Nc7 Qxa1 21 Nd5
If 21 Nxa8 Rxa8
22 fxg6 fxg6 23 Qf7+ Kh8 24 Qxe7 Qb1 25 Qxb7 Re8 26 Re1 Qd3 and Black
wins. A trap to avoid in this line is 24...Qa4 25 Be3 Re8 26 Bd4 and
suddenly it is White who wins.
21 ... Rae8
22 Bg5 Qxb2
Now we see the
final result of the combination Black introduced by his 13th move to
exploit the instability of White’s pieces on the queenside. White’s
queen’s wing has in fact been annihilated and Black has a simple
win on material.
23 Bxe7 Be5
24 Rf2 Qc1+ 25 Rf1 Qh6 26 h3 gxf5 27 Bxf8 Rxf8 28 Ne7+ Kh8 29 Nxf5 Qe6
30 Rg1 a4 31 Rg4 Qb3 32 Qf1 a3 33.Rg3 Qxg3 White resigns 0-1
-
Ray Keene
Keene On Chess Index
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