Viktor Korchnoi, who died in Switzerland at the age of 85 on Monday, was arguably the strongest chess player who never won the World championship. He was also the world’s strongest Grandmaster for the longest time.
He played, sitting on a wheelchair, and won his last competitive game against Germany’s Wolfgang Uhlmann in 2015.
Few in the history of this fascinating mind-sport have played with as much passion. Fewer have fought as hard on the board. Still fewer have been able to maintain a high standard for as long.
He was ranked No. 85 in the world at the age of 75, in 2007. He was 70 when he played at the 2001 World knock-out chess championship in Moscow.
His numerous and unsuccessful series of attempts at the World title began in 1962 when he qualified for the Candidates tournament in Curacao, representing the erstwhile Soviet Union. He reached the World championship final twice, in 1978 and 81, but lost on both occasions to Russian Anatoly Karpov. He had become a Swiss citizen by now.
Not long after his second World title match against Karpov, Korchnoi ran into a little-known Indian called Dibeyndu Barua at the Lloyds Bank International tournament in London in 1982, and lost.
Viswanathan Anand hadn’t yet arrived on the global chess scene, so India for the international chess fraternity was not much more than the country where the sport was invented in the sixth century.
“Since I reached late, it was only shortly before the game I came to know that Korchnoi was my rival,” Barua told The Hindu from Kolkata on Tuesday. “I had heard a lot about him and he was the World No. 2 at the time, behind Karpov. I was both nervous and excited.”
Barua was just 15 then and had already begun to be noticed for his highly original, unschooled, game. A year earlier, at the same tournament, he had drawn with former World champion Vasily Smyslov.
“Against Korchnoi, I had the white pieces and it was a Giuoco Piano,” Barua recalled. “I had tried to play it safe, but he began to attack and I was forced to counter-attack. Both of us were under time pressure. He misplayed a few moves, while I played the knight-and-pawns ending correctly to win in 52 moves.”
Korchnoi’s defeat of course made headlines. ‘Indian turns Korchnoi into Hastings Pudding,’ wrote Grandmaster Robert Byrne in New York Times .
“It remains one of my unforgettable games in my life,” said Barua. “I met Korchnoi once more, at the Inter-zonal tournament at Biel in 1993. That game was drawn. He was disappointed that he could not take revenge.”
The 49-year-old said that Korchnoi was an inspirational figure for chess players around the world.
“It was remarkable that he could play good chess even in old age,” he said. “I have always admired his style of play too; he was an attacking player who excelled in complicated positions.”
