“In all of history you cannot find another player with his long-lived discipline, vigour and ferocity,” Garry Kasparov, writing in Viktor Korchnoi’s autobiography Chess is my Life.
Russian chess grandmaster and four-time Soviet champion Viktor Korchnoi, who is widely believed to be one of the finest players of the twentieth century, died last week in Switzerland. He was 85. Korchnoi was generally regarded as the strongest grandmaster never to have been world champion, in addition to Estonia’s Paul Keres. While both were enduringly consistent, Korchnoi proved quicker in the headlines owing to his 1976 controversial defection to the Netherlands from the Soviet Union.
Korchnoi began his chess career in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he won four Soviet Championships, usually referred to as the most rigorous and testing chess competitions of all time. He also won five European Championship titles, two Interzonal tournaments for the world championship, and two Candidates Tournaments, in 1977, and 1980. Korchnoi was popularly known as “Viktor the Terrible,” largely, it was felt, because of his temper. His playing style was characterized by aggressive counterattack; but he was also tenacious in defence. He was
