Viktor Korchnoi - World Title Candidate

World Title Candidate

He first qualified as a candidate from the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal, scoring 14/22 for a shared 4–5th place finish, as Fischer won. The 1962 Candidates tournament, the last held in a round-robin format for some years, was held at Curaçao a few months later, and Korchnoi placed fifth out of eight with an even score, 13.5/27, with Tigran Petrosian earning the right to challenge Botvinnik.

Korchnoi won at Havana 1963 with 16.5/21, but fared less well in the next Soviet Championship, URS-ch31 at Leningrad, with just 10/19 for 10th place. He missed qualifying for the next world championship cycle, 1964–66, because of a relatively poor showing at the 1964 Zonal tournament in Moscow, where he made 5.5/12 for a shared 5–6th place, so did not advance to the Interzonal. Korchnoi regained his form with an overwhelming triumph at Gyula, Hungary, in 1965 with 14.5/15. He won at Bucharest 1966 with 12.5/14, and at the Chigorin Memorial in Sochi 1966 with 11.5/15.

He tied for 3rd-5th places at the URS-ch34, held in Tbilisi in 1966–67, with 12/20, and emerged from a three-way playoff, along with Aivars Gipslis, at Tallinn, 1967 to the Interzonal, staged at Sousse, Tunisia, later that year. A strong performance at the interzonal, with 14/22, for a shared 2nd–4th place, took him through to the Candidates' matches. In his first match, he defeated American Samuel Reshevsky at Amsterdam in 1968 by (+3 =5). His next opponent was Tal, against whom Korchnoi had had a large plus score in previous meetings. The match, held in Moscow 1968, was close, but Korchnoi won by (+2 -1 =7), and moved on to face Boris Spassky in the Candidates final. Spassky prevailed at Kiev 1968, winning (+4 -1 =5).

Korchnoi, as the losing finalist, was exempt from qualifying for the next cycle (1970–72), and was seeded directly to the following Candidates' event. To prepare, he first played a secret training match with his friend David Bronstein in Leningrad 1970, losing 3.5-2.5. The games from this match were kept secret until 2007, when they were eventually published in Bronstein's last book, Secret Notes. Then, he played a training match against Anatoly Karpov, with whom he was close at the time, at Leningrad 1971; this wound up drawn in six games. Korchnoi won his first round 1971 match against Efim Geller at Moscow by (+4 -1 =3), after which he went down to defeat in the semifinal versus Tigran Petrosian by (-1 =9), also at Moscow, with the ninth game the only decisive result. Karpov, in his book Karpov on Karpov (Atheneum 1993), writes that, because of Fischer's overwhelming form at that time, Korchnoi and Petrosian were asked by Soviet chess authorities to choose between themselves, before the match, who they thought would have the better chance of stopping Fischer in the finals. Petrosian apparently believed strongly in himself, and so Korchnoi was asked to throw the match, receiving as compensation invitations to the three most prestigious tournaments in western Europe. Petrosian, however, lost to Fischer by the score of (+1 -5 =3) late in 1971.

Korchnoi's mood largely dictated his plan for the game. He was comfortable playing with or without the initiative. He could attack, counterattack, play positionally, and was a master of the endgame. He became known as the master of counter-attack, and he was Mikhail Tal's (an out-and-out attacker) most difficult opponent. He had a large lifetime plus score against Tal, and also has plus scores against world champions Petrosian and Spassky. He had equal records against Botvinnik (+1 -1 =2) and Fischer (+2 -2 =4). He has defeated the eight undisputed world champions from Botvinnik to Garry Kasparov, as well as FIDE world champions Ruslan Ponomariov and Veselin Topalov.

Korchnoi and Karpov, the newest star of Soviet chess, tied for first in the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal. In the 1974 Candidates' matches, Korchnoi first defeated the young Brazilian star Henrique Costa Mecking, (who had won the other Interzonal, in Petrópolis) by (+3 -1 =9) at Augusta, Georgia – in what he later described as a tough match in his autobiography. Korchnoi next played Petrosian at Odessa. The two were not on friendly terms, and it was even rumored that the two resorted to kicking each other under the table during this match; however, Korchnoi denies this. According to him, Petrosian just kicked his legs nervously and shook the table. Although the match was supposed to go to the first player to win four games, Petrosian resigned the match after just five games, with Korchnoi enjoying a lead of 3-1, with one draw.

With his victory over Petrosian, Korchnoi advanced to the Candidates' Final, the match to determine who would challenge reigning World Champion Bobby Fischer in 1975, to face Karpov. In the run-up to the match, Korchnoi was constantly subjected to threats and harassment, and was virtually unable to find any Grandmasters to assist him. Bronstein apparently assisted Korchnoi, for which he was punished. Bronstein, in his last book, Secret Notes, published in 2007, wrote that he advised Korchnoi before the match began, but then had to leave to play an event himself; when he returned, Korchnoi was down by three games. Bronstein then assisted Korchnoi for the final stages. Korchnoi also received some assistance later in the match from two British masters, Raymond Keene and William Hartston. Korchnoi trailed 3-0 late in the match, but won games 17 and 21 to make it very close right to the end. Karpov eventually won this epic battle, played in late 1974 in Moscow, by a 12.5–11.5 score. By default, Karpov became the twelfth world champion in April 1975, when Fischer refused to defend his title because of disputed match conditions.

During the match between Karpov and Korchnoi, an amusing incident occurred. In the 21st game, Korchnoi played a strong opening novelty and, after a blunder by Karpov, achieved an overwhelming position. During this game, Korchnoi rose from the board, approached the arbiter and asked whether he could legally castle king-side in the current position, in which a bishop was attacking his rook on h1. The arbiter, Alberic O'Kelly de Galway, informed him that his intended move was legal; shortly after Korchnoi executed it, Karpov resigned.