Viktor Korchnoi

The eternal challenger. A defector who twice challenged Karpov in matches surrounded by Cold War intrigue, mirror-glasses, and refused handshakes. Competitive at the highest level into his eighties.

The Defector

Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi was born on March 23, 1931, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). He survived the brutal Siege of Leningrad as a child, an experience that forged the iron will and combative spirit that would define his chess career. He became one of the strongest players in the Soviet Union, but his difficult personality and refusal to conform to Soviet expectations made him an outsider within the chess establishment.

In 1976, while playing in a tournament in the Netherlands, Korchnoi defected to the West. The decision cost him his family (his wife and son were initially prevented from leaving the Soviet Union) and made him a marked man in Soviet chess. When he qualified to challenge Karpov for the World Championship in 1978, the match became a Cold War proxy battle, with the full weight of the Soviet state arrayed against the lone defector.

Baguio 1978: The Madhouse

The 1978 World Championship match in Baguio, Philippines, was unlike any chess match before or since. Korchnoi arrived with a team that included a parapsychologist and two members of the Ananda Marga sect, a controversial spiritual group. The Soviet delegation included a designated "hypnotist" named Dr. Zukhar, who sat in the front row and stared at Korchnoi during games. Korchnoi responded by wearing mirrored glasses. At one point, the players refused to sit at the same table, and a physical partition was erected on the stage.

Through all the madness, the chess was extraordinary. Korchnoi fell behind, then staged a dramatic comeback to level the score at 5-5. He then lost the 31st game, won the 32nd to trail 16-15, and needed to win the final game to draw the match. He lost. Karpov retained the title by the narrowest possible margin: 16.5-15.5.

Second Challenge and Beyond

Korchnoi qualified again in 1981, but the match in Merano, Italy, was more straightforward and more painful. Karpov won 11-7, a decisive victory that suggested the first match had been as close as it was only because of the psychological chaos. Korchnoi never challenged again, but he continued to compete at a remarkably high level for decades, playing in his final tournament at age 85.

"Chess is my life, but my life is not only chess." — Viktor Korchnoi