Unknown stories about ‘Viktor the Terrible!’ (Part-2)

This is the second part of the article about the four-time USSR chess champion, Viktor Korchnoi! If you missed the first part of this interesting feature, you can read it here.

Viktor vs King’s Indian Defense

Wohl Aleksandar and Viktor Korchnoi

In the Gibraltar Masters (2011, Round 9), Viktor played White against Wohl Aleksandar. Viktor won a beautiful game and said to his opponent: “No one in the world can play the King’s Indian Defense successfully against me.” Wohl’s reply was “Ok, thank you for the game.”

Subsequently, he came over to Wohl again, smiled and said, in English this time: “I thought that you spoke German. Do you speak German?” Wohl’s reply, also in English, was “Yes, I speak German.” Then Viktor continued his train of thought: “No one in the world can play the King’s Indian Defense successfully against me. I would just like to be sure that you understand me.  ”

Read to give a lesson

Viktor was very happy to ‘give a lesson’, especially to younger players. He was very happy if he managed to beat them on the board or teach them some manners off it.

For instance, one day a young opponent came for a game after a 10-minute delay. He sat down, offered Viktor his hand and played his first move. Viktor, in a very serious tone, told him: “You should apologize for your actions. It is not polite to be late for a game. Never do that again.”

Suggestion: you might not want to miss “The greatest chess game everyone MUST know”. 

His character

Korchnoi and Kasparov

Korchnoi was a good person with a sense of humor, but sometimes he was caustic and made rude remarks. Yet, if we take a closer look at his life, we can understand that he endured difficult times. Similarly, we can recognize his great passion for the chess game. This passion sometimes creates strange behavior, especially when you lose a game.

If he lost a game

At the end of 2003, 18-year-old David Navara was facing Korchnoi for the first time. He sacrificed a pawn on h6 to get a strong attack and finally won the game. Of course, Korchnoi was upset and left the hall.

When David started to show variations to the fans, Viktor returned and suggested an improvement. David noticed that the position was unclear. In response, the famous Grandmaster replied: “Only to you!”

He died a few months ago, on 6 June 2016, and leaves behind a grieving chess community. This was Viktor the Terrible, a truly great chess player, a legend. Below, you can see some of his best combinations.

Korchnoi – Donner

White to play

Korchnoi – Hernandez

White to play

Nijboer – Korchnoi

Black to play

  

Korchnoi – Ye

White to play

After calculating all possible variations, you can check the complete games here.

What did people say about Viktor on social media?

Vishy Anand: The chess world loses its greatest fighter. R.I.P. Viktor Korchnoi. Every time I had a rook ending, I would look at Viktor following the game and think, “What would Viktor say?”

 Follow

Viswanathan Anand 

✔@vishy64theking

Miss Viktor. Personally I will miss his characteristic laughter & his love for chess.#Viktor Korchnoi

9:15 PM - 6 Jun 2016

 
•  6767 Retweets
 
•  101101 likes

Nigel Short:

 Follow

Nigel Short @nigelshortchess

Farewell Victor Lvovich - a cantankerous, old git, but a true#chess great nevertheless. Thanks for the many battles we had over 40 years.

9:46 PM - 6 Jun 2016

 
•  4343 Retweets
 
•  8484 likes

If you live in Germany, we may meet soon.  I plan to visit Bavaria, if you live nearby, feel free to send me an e-mail to gm.smirnov2014@gmail.com

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P.S. Brace yourselves, something cool and amazing is on the way – stay tuned! 

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Unknown stories about ‘Viktor the Terrible!’

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Viktor Korchnoi: if he won a game, he was very polite with you and would analyze it happily. If he lost, then … he would pull back his chair with venom and leave the room very angrily!

He was a four-time USSR chess champion, 10 times candidate for the World Championship and played in two World Championship matches. He was in the top 100 best players at the age of 75 and beat Fabiano Caruana at 79!

Suggestion: you may like to know how I defeated Fabiano Caruana in a blitz game here!

Even a stroke in 2012 did not prevent him from returning to competitive chess. The above achievements made him one of the strongest chess players in the world. Unfortunately, he never won the World title because he lost to Anatoly Karpov each time.

Korchnoi, born in 1931 in Leningrad, USSR, was nicknamed “Viktor the Terrible” for his legendary fighting spirit. There are hundreds of books and thousands of articles devoted to this extraordinary person, the legendary Grandmaster Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi, but let’s make a quick summary here.

Early life

He learned to play chess from his father at the age of five. He had the ability to defend with vigor and determination, even in the most difficult positions, and was always ready to unleash a deadly counter-attack.

J’adoube!

He was a really smart guy. Everybody knows that if you touch a piece, then you are forced to move it. From time to time, this happens even to the best players, like Kasparov (in his game against Judit Polgar in 1994) and Nakamura in 2016. So this is what happened to Viktor.

During a game, he grabbed his queen in order to place it somewhere. Suddenly, he realized that this move was a big mistake. What could he do? He already had the queen in his hand …

Instinctively, smart Viktor plunged it into his tea and started to stir it! He justified his action by claiming that he had mistaken the queen for his spoon, and so he was spared a fatal mistake. 

Defection

In 1974, the USSR started a campaign to promote Karpov over Korchnoi. The central authorities prevented him from playing international tournaments or even playing in Estonia which was part of the Soviet Union at that time.

Suggestion: you may like to learn about “Karpov’s Prophylaxis” here.

Tigran Petrosian made a public statement in the press stating that his generation, including Korchnoi, which been defeated by Fischer could no longer hope to compete successfully against him. So he agreed with the Soviet Federation, wishing to develop younger players like Karpov.

In 1976, the USSR authorities allowed Korchnoi to play in a tough 16-player round-robin tournament, IBM Amsterdam, probably in order to prove that he was not so strong any longer.

Korchnoi scored 9.5/15 points and shared first place with Britain’s Tony Miles. At the end of the tournament, he asked Miles to spell ‘political asylum’ for him. But he would have to leave his wife and son behind in the USSR.

So, in 1976, he defected from the Soviet Union and took up residence in Switzerland, becoming a Swiss citizen, and continued to be active in chess. Immediately after his defection, he became a public villain in the USSR. The newspapers and TV accused him of a deadly sin – betrayal of the Motherland.

Best combinations

Now let’s take a look at some of the best combinations from Korchnoi! 

Nataf – Korchnoi

Black to play

Korchnoi – Xie

White to play

Korchnoi – Kozul

White to play

Korchnoi – Shaked

White to play

After calculating all possible variations for each puzzle, you can find all the games here.

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