Young Master
One year later, he qualified for the finals of the USSR Chess Championship for the first time. In the semi-final at Minsk, 1952, he scored 10.5/17 for a shared 2nd–4th place, to advance. In his debut, in URS-ch20 at Moscow, he scored 11/19 for sixth place, as Mikhail Botvinnik and Mark Taimanov came joint first. The next year, he again had to qualify from a semi-final, and succeeded in an event held at Vilnius 1953, with 9/14 for a shared 3rd–4th place. Korchnoi improved on the previous year's showing with his shared 2nd–3rd place in URS-ch21 at Kiev 1954, on 13/19, as Yuri Averbakh won. This high championship placing was rewarded with his first international opportunity, and he did not disappoint, taking clear first at Bucharest 1954 with 13/17. The FIDE awarded him the title of International Master in 1954. He won the 1955 Leningrad Championship with a massive score of 17/19, and shared 1st-2nd places at Hastings 1955–56 on 7/9. He was awarded the Grandmaster title at the FIDE Congress in 1956.
Read more about this topic: Viktor Korchnoi
Famous quotes containing the words young and/or master:
“The man who arrives young believes that he exercises his will because his star is shining. The man who only asserts himself at thirty has a balanced idea of what will power and fate have each contributed, the one who gets there at forty is liable to put the emphasis on will alone.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me—and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Ecclesiastes 2:18-19.