Viktor Korchnoi was one of the strongest players never to win the world championship and the most prolific elite player of the second half of the twentieth century. He played serious tournament chess into his eighties, defeating grandmasters in his eighth decade with a fighting style that hardly slowed. He twice challenged Anatoly Karpov for the world title — losing 1978 in Baguio and 1981 in Merano — and remains the great counter-example to the notion that chess strength fades early.
Korchnoi defected from the Soviet Union in 1976 during a tournament in Amsterdam. The Soviet authorities responded by ostracising him, refusing to release his wife and son, and pressuring other Soviet players to withhold cooperation. He played the 1978 and 1981 title matches against Karpov as a stateless person, eventually taking Swiss citizenship. The political weight of those matches — Soviet champion against Soviet defector — has rarely been equalled in any sport.
His style combined unshakeable defence with sharp counterattack. He was famously difficult to beat in worse positions, often grinding wins from positions assessed as drawn. He played the French Defence and the Queen’s Gambit Declined throughout his career, and his openings choices changed little even as theory moved past him — he trusted middlegame depth over opening novelty. He died in Wohlen, Switzerland, in 2016, having played his last rated tournament a few months before.
Career data
Viktor Korchnoi was born in 1931, in Leningrad, Soviet Union, and died in 2016. They earned the Grandmaster title in 1956. They represent the Schweizerischer Schachbund. Their peak FIDE rating was 2695, reached in 1979. Their playing style is characterised as: Universal · sharp defender · counterattacker. They competed for Switzerland at the international level throughout their career. This biography summarises the publicly recorded career data; for game records and tournament results, follow the related-content links elsewhere on this page.
Notable games & rivals
Notable rivals: Anatoly Karpov, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Botvinnik.