Happy 80th Birthday, Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi, one of the greatest players of the 20th century (and even now a strong GM) and certainly one of the strongest players never to become world champion, is 80 years old today. His accomplishments as a chess player are staggering, both qualitatively and quantitatively, for his exceptionally long career. He twice lost world championship matches - once by a single point - and twice lost in Candidates finals. (Once by a point, and that was probably a de facto world championship match.) He was a candidate on six other occasions, won four Soviet championships and a huge number of other tournaments, and was an elite player for approximately 40 years.
He has also lived a very interesting and colorful life, and here's wishing he'll add many more years to it. Happy birthday, Grandmaster Korchnoi!
Reader Comments (1)
Korchnoi's book "Korchnoi's 400 Best Games" is one of my all time favorites. Not much in the way of deep analysis. However, before databases, the book were a treasury of combative games and an excellent variety of modern opening play. As an example Uhlmann and others were considered the theoretical experts on the French Defence, it was Korchnoi who showed you how to play that opening to win. After studying his games I started to play the French OTB and rarely lost even beating a couple of OB players rated over 300 points higher than me. Both said I knew the opening better than they did. That compliment should have been directed to Korchnoi. In fact my overall style and success greatly improved thanks to him. Like Fischer he taught by example how to add energy and fight to the game.
Though Karpov was a great player I lost respect for him when he allowed Korchnoi's family to be held captive when the second championship match was played. [DM: Can we be sure that he had a choice, or at least one that wouldn't have resulted in his being held captive instead, especially if he wound up losing the match? Anyway, let's please keep the thread about Korchnoi, not about Karpov.] Even the weirdness of using psychics and other distractions during the first match was loathful.
I hope he lives and plays competitive chess until he is 100!