Korchnoi chess is my life

Few grandmasters have played more games than Korchnoi - I find in Chessbase Mega 2016 more than 5000 games. The database consists of about 5 million registered games so Korchnoi was in 1/1000 involved and probably in 1/200 as participant/ spectator in a tournament. If we look to only grandmastergames then the footprint of Korchnoi is even many times bigger.

He played against Levenfish (°1889) and against Carlsen (°1990), he won against all the worldchampions from Botvinnik till Kasparov at least one game - against Tal he had an enormous plusscore, however against Karpov he had a terrible minusscore. He lived to play chess, with an intensity which can't be found by other grandmasters. His gruffness, his stubbornness, his hate against the Sovjet-Union, his youth in the heavily besieged and famished Leningrad during WWII, his unexpected explosions but also his unexpected humor, his clear analysis on and off the board, his anecdotes from his excellent memory. We shall miss it. One of the greatest players has died and just like the recently deceased Mohammed Ali or Johan Cruijff, we should be happy to have them still seen at work during our lives.

I met Korchnoi twice live - this was during the Lost Boys tournament in Antwerp 1995 (won by Novikov and Sokolov ; Korchnoi was shared third with 5 other players.). The first time was the most memorable. He played in the third round a game against the strong Dutch Teun Van der Vorm and I was just watching at his board together with 5 other spectators when Van der Vorm resigned. Korchnoi didn't look happy and it quickly became clear why: ‘If I come up to the board, you should stand up to shake my hand. Not because I’m a grandmaster – also for that – but because I’m older and out of respect for my age you should stand up.’ Van der Vorm kept his mouth wisely but Victor the Terrible continued. ‘You play this game against my French and then you deviate from a game of Fischer. Why do you do that – do you think you’re better than Fischer ?’ Van der Vorm stammered something like ‘it looked playable’ but Korchnoi was not in the mood for jokes so there was no analysis afterwards. The fact that I can still easily remember this, just shows which impression it made upon me - and probably even more on Van der Vorm.

The second time was less impressive, in the center of Antwerp, during the same tournament. I was waiting -together with Franky D- at the crossroad of the Huidevetterstraat and the Meir for the trafficlights, when I noticed Korchnoi on the other side. I crossed the road but was too shied to start a conversation so just mumbled ‘good evening Mr Korchnoi’.  I think he did hear something. Franky waited for him to start a short conversation with him. Pity that smartphones didn't exist at that time.

On twitter a nice reaction of Svidler was posted, in which he stated than an insult by Korchnoi was a kind of honour (this remembered me Donner, as Dutch players you only played a role when Donner noticed you and ... scoffed at you - ‘Krabbé ? A cycler!’) – and if he became angry, then it was because you got him agitated. Noting more could annoy him than a lack of respect or a loss. Svidler won their first mutual game because Korchnoi kept playing for a win despite the equalizing play of Svidler, but Korchnoi destroyed him in their second game. He thought for an hour upon a forced continuation - Svider couldn't find the win for Korchnoi, but after that hour of reflection he was defeated quickly in a strong sequence of moves. When Svidler congratulated him after the game with the words « I always appreciate a well played game, even against me» Korchnoi relaxed. Both games are really nice to be replayed.

As metioned on Chessbase, his wife Petra stays behind alone – a soulmate, as she also experienced the black side of the communisme. When she met him the first time, she knew that they were matching - Korchnoi needed her, first as a secretary, later as wife and anchor. Korchnoi lived only for chess and that is literally. He didn't read romans or other books, he seldom or never went to cultural or sportive happenings. His biggest pleasure -after giving up smoking - was to enjoy a good piece of chocolate. He regretted the gap of culture; e.g he never read the Russian classical authors but his choice was made: everything for chess - no compromise.

I have one book of Korchnoi (PracticalRook Endgames) – the endgames are very deeply analyzed (Hubners style) but are very instructive. Somebody interested in how world-classplayers analyze - recommended (see e.g. chessgames or chesscafe for a review), even if it was only for the excellent introduction to elementary rookendgames.

Did Korchnoi play impressive games to be stored as heritage? Yes Any wins of Korchnoi in collections of best played or most memorable games? No In the little book « Legendäre Schachpartien » of Humboldt, there are more than 100 memorable games. 2 of them are losses by Korchnoi, no wins are included. If we compare then Tal is mentioned 6 times, Kasparov 8 times. Also in other collections we see very few wins of Korchnoi ( in Bouwmeesters 100 brilliant games there are surprisingly still 2: Korchnoi-Udovcic, Leningrad 1967, in which he has to fight against his French defense and the latte middlegame of Korchnoi-Yusupov, Rotterdam 1988). Korchnoi was not brilliant, he liked defending and counterattack, but as Spassky sneakily formulated: « He can play anything, from attack to defense, from complex middlegames to technical endgames. He masters his openingtheory and posses an unbelievable strength to work. It is only a pity that he didn't have the talent to become worldchampion. » That hits the nail on its head. Just like Kamsky years later, Korchnoi also missed that last sparkel of creativity, dare, talent, luck, readiness to take risks, ingeniousness, - call it like you want - to jump over the last hurdle. Often he introduced a novelty on the board, which already was tried 50 years ago, because ‘everything that is forgotten is new (again)’.

My personal selection of Korchnoi games is therefore Van der Vorm – Korchnoi (Fischer-Darga).

[Event "op Antwerp BEL"] [Site "op Antwerp BEL"] [Date "1995"] [Round "3"] [Result "0-1"] [White "Teun van der Vorm"] [Black "Viktor Korchnoi"] [ECO "C19"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "134"] 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3 6. bxc3 Qc7 7. Nf3 Ne7 8. a4 b6 9. Bb5 Bd7 10. Bd3 Nbc6 11. O-O c4 12. Be2 f6 13. Re1 {(In 1960 Fischer played Ba3 in his game against Darga.)}O-O-O 14. Ba3 Be8 15. Bf1 Qd7 16. exf6 gxf6 17. Qe2 Bf7 18. g3 Nf5 19. Bh3 Rde8 20. Qd2 Bg6 21. Qf4 Qc7 22. Qxc7 Kxc7 23. Re2 Bh5 24. Bxf5 exf5 25. Rxe8 Rxe8 26. Re1 Rxe1 27. Nxe1 a5 28. f3 Na7 29. Kf2 b5 30. Ng2 bxa4 31. Ne3 Nb5 32. Bb2 a3 33. Ba1 Kc6 34. Nxf5 Nc7 35. Ne3 Ne6 36. g4 Bg6 37. Kg3 Ng7 38. f4 Be4 39. f5 h6 40. Kf4 Bh1 41. h4 Kd6 42. h5 Ne8 43. Kg3 Be4 44. Kf2 Kc6 45. Ke2 Nd6 46. Kf2 Nf7 47. Ke2 Ng5 48. Kf2 Kb5 49. Ke2 Nh3 50. Kf1 Bf3 51. Ke1 Kc6 52. Kf1 Bh1 53. Ke2 Ng5 54. Ke1 Ne4 55. Ke2 a2 56. Bb2 Nd6 57. Kf2 Be4 58. Ke2 Nb5 59. Ba1 a4 60. Bb2 Na3 61. g5 a1=Q 62. Bxa1 fxg5 63. f6 Kd7 64. Ng4 Nxc2 65. Nxh6 Nxa1 66. Nf7 Bd3 67. Kf3 Ke6 0-1

and Karpov-Korchnoi from the tournament of Dortmund 1994, in which they both scored 50%.

[Event "Dortmund, Cat.16"] [Site "Dortmund, Cat.16"] [Date "1994.07.22"] [Round "7"] [Result "0-1"] [White "Anatoly Karpov"] [Black "Viktor Korchnoi"] [ECO "E12"] [WhiteElo "2780"] [BlackElo "2615"] [PlyCount "144"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3 Bb7 5.Nc3 d5 6.Bg5 Be7 7.Qa4 c6 8.Bxf6 Bxf6 9.cxd5 exd5 10.g3 O-O 11.Bg2 Nd7 12.O-O Be7 13.Rfd1 f5 14.e3 Bd6 15.Ne2 Qe7 16.Nf4 a5 17.Nd3 b5 18.Qc2 a4 19.Re1 Kh8 20.Rac1 Nb6 21.Nfe5 Nc4 22.f4 g5 23.Qe2 Rg8 24.Kf2 Raf8 25.Nf3 h6 26.Nfe5 Kh7 27.Kg1 Qe8 28.Qc2 Kh8 29.Nf2 Rg7 30.Re2 Bc8 31.Rce1 Rfg8 32.Nxc4 bxc4 33.Qxa4 Rb7 34.Nd1 h5 35.Kf2 Bd7 36.Qc2 Qg6 37.Kf1 h4 38.Rf2 g4 39.Kg1 Rgb8 40.Qe2 h3 41.Bf1 Bc7 42.b4 cxb3 43.Nb2 Bd6 44.a4 Qe6 45.Rd1 Ra7 46.Rd3 Kh7 47.Qd1 c5 48.Rxb3 Rxb3 49.Qxb3 c4 50.Qb6 Ra8 51.e4 fxe4 52.f5 Qe7 53.Nd1 Rb8 54.Qa5 Bc6 55.f6 Qe6 56.Ne3 Rb3 57.Qa7 Bb7 58.a5 Bf8 59.Rf4 Bh6 60.f7 Bxf4 61.f8=Q Bxe3 62.Kh1 Bh6 63.Qf2 Bg7 64.a6 Rf3 65.Qe1 Bxa6 66.Be2 Rf7 67.Qc5 c3 68.Qcxc3 Bxe2 69.Qxe2 Qf6 70.Qc1 Bh6 71.Qb1 Qf5 72.Kg1 Rc7 0-1

The last game was one of the rare wins of Korchnoi over Karpov. After their second worldchampionship in 1981 they still met each other 32 times. But something was broken for Korchnoi. Karpov had solved the code and became his nemesis. Of the 32 games, Karpov won 16 times (!), they made 15 draws and only once Karpov lost. But that one game must have made Korchnoi very happy for week or so. It was also a very special game: In an equal position Korchnoi permits Karpov to get a second queen, but that is immediately the losing move. Although the game still lasts more than 10 moves, Korchnoi doesn't blink anymore and wins. After the game Korchnoi commented " one way or another the board is too small for 2 queens».

HK5000