Viktor Korchnoi

Viktor Korchnoi
Korchnoi in 1985
Full name	Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi Виктор Львович Корчной
Country	Soviet Union (until 1977) Stateless (1977–1979) Switzerland (from 1979)[1]
Born	(1931-03-23)23 March 1931 Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died	6 June 2016(2016-06-06) (aged 85) Wohlen, Aargau, Switzerland
Title	Grandmaster (1956)
Peak rating	2695 (January 1979)[2]
Peak ranking	No. 2 (January 1976)

Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi^[3] (Russian: Виктор Львович Корчной, IPA: [vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj]; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion.^[4]

Born in Leningrad, Soviet Union (USSR), Korchnoi defected to the Netherlands in 1976, and resided in Switzerland from 1978, becoming a Swiss citizen. Korchnoi played four matches, three of which were official, against GM Anatoly Karpov. In 1974, Korchnoi lost the Candidates Tournament final to Karpov. Karpov was declared World Champion in 1975 when GM Bobby Fischer declined to defend his title. Korchnoi then won two consecutive Candidates cycles to qualify for World Chess Championship matches with Karpov in 1978 and 1981 but lost both. The two players also played a drawn training match of six games in 1971.

Korchnoi was a candidate for the World Championship on ten occasions (1962, 1968, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1988, and 1991). He was also four times a USSR Chess Champion, five times a member of Soviet teams that won the European championship, and six times a member of Soviet teams that won the Chess Olympiad. He played competitive chess until old age. At age 75, he won the 2006 World Senior Chess Championship^[5] and became the oldest person ever to be ranked among the world's top 100 players.^[6]