Viktor Korchnoi

Defeated in two World Championship matches (1978, 1981)

Ranking: according to Chessmetrics, world number one for 4 months in 1965 and world number two continuously from 1974 to 1981. According to FIDE, highest world number two, continuously from 1976 to 1979.

Highest FIDE Elo rating: 2695

Tournament career: winner of 37 super-tournaments: 

Candidate matches 1977

Candidate matches 1980

4-time winner of the USSR Championship

4-time winner of Tata Steel Masters

2-time winner of Hastings International Chess Congress, Palma de Mallorca Chess Tournament, Lugano Chess Tournament

and many others…

Chess Olympiads: for the USSR: six gold team medals, two gold and three bronze individual medals

Why he deserved it:

When we talk about the best players who never won the world championship title, we logically talk about those who played after 1886, when this title was established. I declare that the best player since 1886 without the world championship title is, for me, absolutely unequivocally Viktor Korchnoi. 

Korchnoi was a colossal player, a giant of the chess game, whose mark in the world of chess is so large that it surpasses many world champions. Viktor was a world championship candidate a total of ten times between 1962-1991. At that time, the world championship cycles were three years long, so by simple calculation, we find that Korchnoi spent thirty years at the absolute world top. He managed to win the candidate matches twice, in 1977 over Petrosian, Polugaevsky, and Spassky, and three years later over Petrosian, Polugaevsky, and Hubner. In both cases, he lost to Karpov, who was exactly twenty years younger. In their first title match, Karpov was 27 and Korchnoi 47 years old. It is admirable how balanced and dramatic the match was despite this obvious disadvantage. At that time, it was played to six victories, and after a long 31 games, the score was 5:5. Karpov exerted all his strength and finally secured the decisive sixth victory for himself. The second title match in 1981 was won more clearly by Karpov.

These matches also had a huge political context, as Korchnoi defected from the Soviet Union and was their number one enemy. The Soviets had to endure the loss of the world championship title to Fischer a few years earlier – but that was nothing compared to losing it again to a “traitor.” I personally consider the Karpov – Korchnoi match in 1978 to be the most interesting world championship match in history. I recommend everyone to find out more about this match.

Even though he did not become a world champion, Viktor Korchnoi’s career leaves little doubt that he is one of the greatest chess players of all time. He won so many super-tournaments that only a handful of players surpassed his number. None of the Soviet post-war world champions up to Karpov even came close to him in this regard. Korchnoi was also the world number one according to chessmetrics in 1965 and then the world number two for six consecutive years, according to FIDE for three consecutive years. This achievement is hard to imagine today.

It is also interesting that Korchnoi had excellent scores against post-war world champions after Karpov. Excluding draws, he played 1:1 with Botvinnik, 13:4 with Tal, 12:9 with Petrosian, 20:16 with Spassky, and 2:2 with Fischer. He only had a negative score with Smyslov 3:5. Korchnoi became a nightmare for Soviet players after his emigration to the West – instructions from Moscow were clear: the traitor must not pass. However, in the following world championship cycles, Korchnoi cut through them one by one in the candidate matches. He eliminated Petrosian in three consecutive cycles, which must have been a great satisfaction for him, as the former world champion was his long-term enemy and his most fervent critic after his emigration.

Korchnoi is the only player who participated in both USSR vs World matches (1970, 1984) each time for a different team. In the first match, he played for the USSR on the third board and lost his mini-match with Portisch. Fourteen years later, he played for the world team, again on the third board, and defeated Polugaevsky.

Korchnoi played at a very high level until an advanced age. In 2011, at almost 80 years old, he defeated the then eighteen-year-old Fabiano Caruana, who already had a rating over 2700, in a serious game. He was the oldest player in the top 100 rankings. He died in 2016 in his adopted homeland of Switzerland.

Best games:

Viktor Korchnoi vs Mikhail Tal

USSR Championship 1962