Best Chess Players Never To Become World Champion Archives - Chessentials https://chessentials.com/category/chess-history/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion/ Chess blog about chess tactics, chess games and chess books Sat, 25 May 2019 19:28:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://chessentials.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cropped-vjeks2-2-1-32x32.png Best Chess Players Never To Become World Champion Archives - Chessentials https://chessentials.com/category/chess-history/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion/ 32 32 Best chess players never to become World Champion – part two – Paul Keres https://chessentials.com/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion-part-two-paul-keres/ https://chessentials.com/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion-part-two-paul-keres/#comments Wed, 21 Jun 2017 20:40:40 +0000 https://chessentials.com/?p=1676  Friend Paul If it weren’t for the greatness of Viktor Korchnoi, examined in the first part of this series, the Estonian Paul Keres would have easily taken the number one spot on the “greatest player never...

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]]>  Friend Paul

If it weren’t for the greatness of Viktor Korchnoi, examined in the first part of this series, the Estonian Paul Keres would have easily taken the number one spot on the “greatest player never to become World Champion” list.

During his career, Paul Keres displayed amazing consistency and longevity. Brilliant tournament victories, multiple SSSR Championship wins, golden Olympic medals, attractive attacking style and four(!) second places in the Candidates tournament over the span of 20 years make him one of the giants of our ancient game.

Especially when one learns about all the political and historical circumstances that weren’t in his favour for the most part of his career.

His greatness was acknowledged recently with a series of brilliant articles by Estonian Historian Joosep Grents for chess24.com.

Those articles are wonderful and very informative and they say a lot about Keres’ life off the board, about his early days and about his psychological state during the key moments of his career. The series is a fantastic read, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

In this article, I will focus on the key tournaments of Keres’ life and most important games he played in those tournaments.

Slikovni rezultat za paul keres
Young Paul Keres

AVRO 1938 – THE TOURNAMENT OF THE CENTURY

The first major breakthrough in Keres’ career was his victory in the celebrated AVRO tournament held in 1938.

The tournament held in 1938 sponsored by Dutch radio company Avro is probably the most famous chess event of the 20th century.

It is impossible to grasp its importance without explaining the circumstances under which it was held.

For starters, the 1930s were the years in which the change of the generations was quite obvious.

Although Alexander Alekhine was still the champion prior to this tournament, his age was beginning to tell and he wasn’t able to demonstrate his dominance in the tournaments of those times.

Jose Raul Capablanca was also a mere shadow of a player he once was. These classical titans found it hard to fight against the gladiators of the new age.

And there was quite a number of gladiators during those years:

  • the American hopes Samuel Reshzevsky and Reuben Fine
  • the Russian champion and future World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik
  • the Czechoslovakian Grandmaster Salo Flohr
  • the Dutch Grandmaster Max Euwe, who managed to beat Alekhine in the 1935 World Championship match

There was a lot of fuss in the selection of the new World Championship challenger. After Alekhine defeated Euwe in the return match in 1937, the natural question arose: “Who’s next.”

FIDE decided to solve the question very elegantly. During a congress held in Stockholm, they selected the Czechoslovakian Salo Flohr with a simple voting system (?).

The match was supposed to be scheduled in 1939, but Hitler intervened…

Therefore, after lengthy discussions, it was decided that AVRO 1938 will be treated as a Candidates tournament.

Well, sort of. The winner would not gain the automatic right for a match against Alekhine. The Champion still had the choice in challenger selection, but he was supposed to take the results of the AVRO in the account.

The tournament itself was the strongest tournament of those times. The participants were:

  • Paul Keres
  • Reuben Fine
  • Alexander Alekhine
  • Jose Raul Capablanca
  • Max Euwe
  • Salo Flohr
  • Mikhail Botvinnik
  • Samuel Reshevsky

 

avro
The participants of the Avro tournament (1) – Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fine and Landau (on behalf of Capablanca) – Image source: www.chesshistory.com
avro
The participants of the Avro tournament (2) – Euwe, Alekhine, Flohr, Keres – Image source: www.chesshistory. com

The tournament was double round-robin with every round played in the different city. This system was very difficult for the older participants, and final results confirmed this assumption since first three places were won by players of the young generation. Therefore, AVRO also symbolically marked the definite end of the era of classical giants like Alekhine and Capablanca.

The joint first place was divided between Paul Keres and Reuben Fine. Both scored +3, but their tournament paths were quite different.

Whereas Fine won 5 out of his 6 first games (!!) and at the end played 9 decisive games (+6-3=5), Keres’ play was more restrained and pragmatic.

His result (+3-0=11) is more resemblant of a tournament result from the 21st century. He basically wasn’t in serious trouble of losing in any of the games and he used his opportunities and won his games in convincing style.

Consider for instance his first win of the tournament, his fourth round demolition of the Samuel Reshevsky:

Apart from Reshevsky, Keres also beat Capablanca with the White pieces, and Fine with the Black pieces.

Although his game against Capablanca is probably more famous, I think that his victory against Fine is more significant from tournament’s perspective.

The game was played in the 7th round, and Fine was on +5 already. In order to retain hopes of ultimate success, Keres had to beat him and stop his streak.

Many years later, Keres called this game the most important game of his career:

Thus, after the first half of the tournament, Keres was on +3, half a point behind Fine. However, considering that the latter went on to lose a number of games in the second half, Keres pragmatically decided to draw a lot of games in the second half of the tournament.

He didn’t deviate from this strategy even in the last round when he played Fine with the White pieces. Even though the two players shared the lead before the last round, they decided to go for a quick draw, reckoning that risking shared first is not worth it.

Therefore, they shared the lead, and Keres was welcomed triumphally in his motherland of Estonia.

Keres with the Estonian president Konstantin Päts – Source Chess.24 article

FROM AVRO TO THE END OF WORLD WAR II – ALMOST A WORLD CHAMPION

After AVRO, it became quite clear that Keres is one of the strongest players on the planet and he should have gained the right to challenge Alekhine for the title.

Alas, the match between them never took place. In the parts III and IV of his article, Joosep Grents explains in greater detail why that was so. I will summarise the key points here.

Keres basically had two opportunities for the match with Alekhine until the latter’s death in 1946.

The first happened directly after his AVRO triumph. After his victory, a meeting with Alekhine was scheduled, where details of the subsequent match were expected to be arranged.

However, Keres was forestalled by… Botvinnik. After his victories against Capablanca and Alekhine, Botvinnik thought he has gained the right to challenge Alekhine as well.

If I may add my personal opinion, I think that this egotistic behaviour was typical of the 6th World Champion. Apparently, the significance of the AVRO tournament result was not that relevant to him.

Therefore, Alekhine was reluctant to sign any written arrangement with Keres. Similarly, as he used supposed money to avoid the rematch with Capablanca, he now used the monetary questions again to avoid defining anything about his match with Keres.

Therefore, Keres left, the AVRO company refused to meet Alekhine’s demands and the question of the next challenger was left hanging.

But then the World War II intervened.

Slikovni rezultat za keres alekhine
Alekhine – Keres. Source: www.chesshistory.com

You might remember that Estonia was invaded by the Germans during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Keres, a former Soviet citizen, now found himself on the wrong side of the line.

It is then when the second opportunity for a match against Alekhine appeared. Alekhine was a Nazi collaborator since the invasion of the France in 1940 (check his Wikipedia page for the explanation why he decided on that).

Therefore suddenly, old rivals were once again competing in World War II tournaments held in the territory of the Third Reich.

Allegedly, it was during those years that Alekhine repeatedly asked Keres to play a match for the title. Somehow, our good Paul always refused; Alekhine attributed that to fear. His famous phrase says that: “They all wait until I’m 60 to play for the title.”

However, the reasons for refusal were explained much later by Paul Keres himself:

“What can Alekhine grant me? What kind of importance would such a contest even have? If I won the match I’d gain a bunch of worthless German marks. (…) Would it even be a match for the World Championship title? It would be a match to become the champion of a certain part of the world, that occupied by the German army… If I lost the match, though, I would forever lose the chance to compete for the title following the inevitable end of the war, and would likely lose my right to seize the World Championship title.”

Can you imagine? The spirit of the times, the uncertainties of the war and ignorance about the future.

Paul Keres in 1943 – Source: chess24.com

1948 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT

Thus, it turned out that the return match with Euwe will be the last match for the World title of Alekhine’s life.

After his death in 1946., the natural question of filling the void arose.

At the FIDE Congress in The Hague in 1947, it was decided that the question of the World Champion will be solved by a World Championship Tournament.  Half of the tournament was held in the Hague, another half in Moscow.

However, before proceeding directly to the tournament, it is worth mentioning the path of Paul Keres just after the war.

As mentioned above, during the War he participated in Chess events organised by Nazi Germany.

As if that alone was not enough, he was also accused of maintaining friendly relations with Estonian Nationalists. (once again, check here for more details).

However, someone was sober enough to protect Keres from the terrible fate of Siberian gulags. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any consequences:

  • first Keres was stripped of the title of Soviet Grandmaster
  • he was also forbidden from participating in chess competitions
  • even after his slight rehabilitation, he was banned from international competitions. This made him miss the 1946 Groningen tournament, the strongest post-war tournament, even though organisers invited him personally.

(Once again, check this article for more details about Keres’ war path).

On the other hand, Botvinnik enjoyed the full support of the Soviet authorities, he played (and won) in Groningen and pretty much everybody in the Communist party wanted him to become the new Champion since he was considered to be an ideal Soviet prototype.

The difference in their character was also apparent. The Botvinnik was a machine, methodical worker dedicated to his goal that should be achieved by any means necessary.

For Keres, on the other hand, the most important thing was to remain gentleman until the very end.

“He was most of all upset with people who were full of themselves. He was most upset with discourtesy. He did not really tolerate people who would use any means conceivable to achieve their ends. He always thought that one has to remain a gentleman.”

You get the feeling that Keres was the true definition of a nice guy; it is no wonder that Botvinnik got the feeling that Keres was often let down by his nerves. After surviving interrogation by the KGB, who wouldn’t be?

All things considered, it is not surprising that Botvinnikwon the tournament with relative ease. The major factor were his individual games with Keres; he beat him in 4 out of 5 games (with the 5th game being the last round when the result didn’t matter for the tournament standings anymore).

Slikovni rezultat za botvinnik keres 1948
Photo from the last round of the 1948 tournament. Source: Douglas Griffin twitter

However, Keres did play some attractive games, resembling his best years. I particularly liked his wins against Euwe and Smyslov during the first two rounds of the tournament.

1953 ZÜRICH CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT

The 1948 World Championship tournament clearly left a mark on Keres, as his results were below his standard in the subsequent years.

The 1948-1951 period was the time when another great player never to become World Champion, David Bronstein, shone, as he won major tournaments and qualified for the match against Botvinnik, which he lost after a nail-biting finish (see part three of this series for more details).

The major turnaround happened in the 1951 USSR Championship when Keres became the Soviet Champion for the third time.

As a result, he was awarded the first board in the Soviet team for the upcoming Olympiad (ahead of Botvinnik, whose ego found this decision so scandalous that he refused to participate at all).

These events clearly gave a new lease of life to elderly Keres and he eagerly awaited the 1953 Zürich Candidates tournament.

Keres as the Soviet Champion in 1951. Source: chess24.com

Zürich turned out to be an epochal tournament, where another bright young star, Vasily Smyslov won his first Candidates Tournament.

Subsequently, the tournament gained much attention and recognition due to the excellent tournament book, written by David Bronstein. 

In Zürich, our hero Keres started his series of second places, finishing 2 points behind the winner, Smyslov. The fate of the tournament was mainly decided in their individual encounters, both of which were won by Smyslov.

The first one happened in the 9th round:

Whereas this was a setback for Keres, it was not yet the end of the tournament.

The second game between the same opponents was much more important and is much more famous. Keres was on 13/23, just a half a point behind the leaders, Smyslov and Reshevsky.

Here once again politics intervened. Apparently, Soviet authorities were unnerved by the fact that Reshevsky American was leading. This led to some interesting “behind the scenes” events (source: chess24.com).

“Keres was summoned by the leader of the Soviet delegation, Postikov, and told that he was not allowed to play for a win against Smyslov, since it would benefit Reshevsky. Keres’ second, Tolush, believes Smyslov was unaware of this.  A tense conversation lasted several hours. Keres sharply rejected such a dishonourable agreement and became very upset.”

Here is what Keres had to say about this game (source: Paul Keres: The Quest for Perfection).

“The decisive game against Smyslov still lay ahead. Should I succeed in winning this then I would be at the head of the tournament with every hope of emerging with final victory, but a draw too would not have extinguished my hopes, and therefore I should not have played in too risky a style in this game. However, I again repeated a mistake I have made so often before and staked everything on one card. I offered my opponent an extremely complicated piece sacrifice, acceptance of which would have submitted Smyslov to a fierce attack. But, after long reflection, Smyslov discovered an excellent defence and once I had sacrificed the chance of securing equality in favour of an ill-considered plan, the consequences were soon apparent. I suffered an ignominious defeat and in so doing I had not only thrown away all chances of first place but was once again back in fourth place. The stiff struggle for an upwards climb had to be started all over again.”

Let’s take a look at this decisive encounter, which effectively decided the winner of the tournament:

After this brilliant piece of defence, Smyslov went on to win the tournament in the end and qualify for the match against Botvinnik. Keres would have to wait for another three years to get another opportunity to qualify.

1956 AMSTERDAM CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT

Keres’ form did not fade in the subsequent years. The best proof is his majestic result in the 1954 Amsterdam Olympiad – 96.4% or 13.5/14 (true, on a relatively lower board four).

After having shared the win in the 1955 Hastings tournament (with Smyslov), his expectations for the upcoming World Championship qualification cycle were naturally high.

Firstly, he had to qualify for the Candidates tournament via Interzonal tournament (introduced for the first time for this cycle).

It is true that taking one of the first nine places didn’t present an impossible task for elite players at that time. But the fact that they had to play a qualification tournament for a qualification tournament testifies how protected the World Champion was at that time.

Nevertheless, Keres, among with 8 other colleagues qualified from the Interzonal. Together with the runner-up of the last match, Vasily Smyslov, they gathered at Amsterdam in 1956 and Candidates tournament was ready to begin.

In the 1956 Candidates, tournament race was once again led between Smyslov and Keres.

Due to the fact that there were a couple of “outsiders” playing in the tournament (such as Pilnik, Panno and Filip), Keres, already 40 years old, decided to adopt a different tournament strategy.

Instead of going all out in every game, he decided to accept many quick draws, in order to preserve the energy.

Thus, this time his both encounters against Smyslov ended in relatively colourless draws.

However, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t play some fighting chess when necessary. I was particularly impressed by his 10th round victory against Bronstein with the Black pieces, where he clung on in a difficult position and managed to overturn the game in his favour.

The tournament was much tenser than Zürich. By Smyslov’s own admission:

“The battle became especially fierce in the second cycle, when three rounds from the finish Keres was level with me, with Geller and Bronstein half a point behind, and Spassky and Petrosian trailing by a further half point. In this sharp situation, I won a very tense game against Bronstein, then drew with Spassky, and success in the final game with Pilnik gave me victory in the tournament.”

Source: Smyslov’s 125 selected games

However, Smyslov fails to acknowledge that the dramatic encounter between Keres and Filip had as much influence on the tournament outcome as his own games.

We will analyse this historic game that turned out to be one of the most tragic games in the glorious career of Paul Keres.

Games such as this one really make us pity Keres. He was obviously perfectly capable of reaching a World Championship match based on purely playing skills.

However, it seems that Kasparov is right when he mentions that subconsciously, Keres experienced ‘Botvinnik fear’ and faltered whenever he was very close. Source: Garry Kasparov, On My Great Predecessors.

Anyway, such an end to a tournament would probably kill everyone’s hope of ever reaching the World Championship.

However, it turned out that Keres is not ‘everyone’.

1959 YUGOSLAVIA CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT

After the Amsterdam fiasco, Keres’ tournament results slightly declined. However, it seems that two particular results boosted his confidence that all is not lost yet.

At the 1956 Olympiad, he claimed individual gold on board three as a part of the ever-mighty Soviet team with a respectable 9.5/12 result.

Then, at the Alekhine Memorial tournament in Moscow, he went on to beat Botvinnik, despite having a terrible tournament.

The impressive Soviet team at the 1956 Olympiad. From left to right: Taimanov, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Kotov, Geller, Bronstein. Source: chess24.com

It is worth mentioning that during those years two young bright stars appeared on the horizon: the fascinating Robert James Fischer and the hurricane Tal. Also, Tigran Petrosian was developing rapidly.

Therefore, everybody was eagerly awaiting the next Candidates tournament, to see how would the clash between older and newer generation end.

The Candidates tournament of 1959 was held in various cities of Yugoslavia – Zagreb, Bled and Belgrade.

This time the tournament was quadruple round-robin (yes, you read that right). That meant that each participant would play 4 times against each of the other 7 participants.

The main battle was fought between Tal and.. once again Keres. Despite starting the tournament slowly and losing to Fischer in the first round, he recovered immediately by beating Smyslov with the Black pieces. And then came his first encounter against Tal:

Alas, Keres was unable to fully build on his success, as he fell victim to Petrosian in the very next round.

However, he kept fighting nevertheless and with 3 wins from the next 5 rounds met Tal once again in the 10th round.

However, except for his defeats against Keres, Tal was crushing everyone else. Keres was simply unable to keep pace in defeating the players finishing in the lower part of the tournament table. Against Olafsson, Gligoric, Fischer and Benko, Tal scored an unbelievable 13/16.

Keres, on the other hand, was particularly unsuccessful against Fischer. After losing in the first round, he also lost in the 15th round after a terrible blunder:

Thus, four rounds before the end of the tournament, before another Keres – Tal game, Tal had a 2.5 point lead.

A small ray of hope was provided with this famous encounter.

Alas, Tal went on to beat Fischer two rounds before the finish, and in the end, he finished one and a half point ahead of Keres.

It has to be admitted that Tal indeed played the best chess at that particular moment. With 18.5 points Keres would have won any of the previous three Candidates tournament, but what’s all of it worth when Tal had 20.

However, to an extent it always remained the story of Keres’ life; no matter how good he played in Candidates tournament, there was always someone who played better.

Or had more luck, as the final Candidates tournament of Keres’ life, Curacao 1962, proved.

Keres and his ‘nemesis’ Fischer in the 1959 Candidates tournament. Source: chess24.com

1962 CURACAO CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT

The Candidates tournaments of 1962, held in the small isle of Curacao in Venezuela, turned out to be the most controversial Candidates tournament overall.

The fact that Joosep Gents dedicated it a separate article speaks for itself; here I would like to sum up the key points and games of the last Candidates Tournament of those times.

The choice of the tournament location was a controversy of sorts by itself. The tropical climate was another difficult opponent players had to face during the two-month (!!) tournament.

In addition, Mikhail Tal, who has recently undergone a kidney surgery, was one of the participants but was obviously unwell.

This fact, together with the customary participation of “outsiders”, (Benko, Filip and Korchnoi, who was not yet a player he was to become later), led to the private agreement between the other three Soviets, Geller, Petrosian and Keres, that they will draw all the games between each other.

As Korchnoi himself remarked:

“This was perhaps the only time when the Soviet authorities did not intervene to determine any competition among the Soviets. On this occasion, it was Petrosian personally who set up this controversy and he was helped by his friend, Geller. Keres was a wise man, but he was not cunning, he took the bait, while he could have refrained. The three players had privately agreed that they would draw all their games with each other. Tal and I were not included in this scheme. But in the end, they colluded against Keres.”

Source: chess24.com

Soviet delegation at the Schiphol airport, before departing for Curacao. Source: chess24.com

Naturally, it didn’t take long for Fischer to “smell a rat”, and he went on to release the famous “Russians have fixed the world chess” article.

Due to this the drawing pact is usually perceived as a Russian conspiracy that denied Fischer of any chances. However, as turned out, it hurt Keres more in the end. But, more on that later.

In Curacao, the main battle was fought between the aforementioned trio, Keres, Petrosian and Geller.

Their tournament strategy worked actually worked perfectly for them. Keres, while drawing with his Soviet compatriots, scored a massive plus score against Benko, Filip and Tal.

I was particularly impressed by his 6th round game against Benko.

His 16th round game against Tal was also extremely interesting, and it brought a lot of attention due to the wonderful book of Alexander Kotov, Think like a grandmaster.

In the 21st round, Keres finally managed to beat Fischer, who has always been a difficult opponent for him. (In Curacao also Keres scored only 0.5/2 until this game)

4 rounds before the finish, Keres and Petrosian shared the lead and had to play against each other. Under normal circumstances, Keres, playing the White pieces, would have a big psychological advantage, but considering that the pact was still on, they only fizzled a mere 14 moves before shaking their hands.

Thus, status quo was maintained. 2 round before finish, Keres faced his eternal client Benko (prior to this encounter he has beaten him 7 times in a row).

Alas…this time Keres played strangely, passively and the game was adjourned in an unpleasant position for him.

During the adjournment, Benko was offered unexpected help from… Petrosian and Geller:

“In this all-important game, I was a bit better and adjourned. A while later, Petrosian and Geller came to me in secret and offered to help me beat their own countryman! I was disgusted. Telling them that it would be a draw with the best play, I demanded that they leave. However, when we resumed, Keres made an error, and I won.”

Source: Pal Benko: My Life, Games and Compositions

Let’s take a look at that historic game, that stripped Keres of his final chance of qualifying for the match against Botvinnik.

After also drawing with Fischer in the last round, Keres had to relinquish last hope of match against Botvinnik. Petrosian won with 17.5, while Keres had 17.

Really a tragic end to a brilliant career. As Tal remarked:

“Only once did I see Keres upset: at the finish of Curacao. The theory of probability played a cruel trick on him.”

Source: Garry Kasparov, On My Great Predecessors, Part two

Kasparov labelled Keres’ constant failures as “Botvinnik fear.” It seems that at critical moments his nerves failed him; the events of the 40s probably still lurked somewhere in Keres’ subconsciousness, hindering him from displaying full potential at critical moments in his career.

Nevertheless, Paul Keres enjoyed a remarkable career and his name will be written in the chess history books forever.

Rest in peace, Friend Paul.

A monument dedicated to Paul Keres in Estonia

 

The post Best chess players never to become World Champion – part two – Paul Keres appeared first on Chessentials.

]]> https://chessentials.com/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion-part-two-paul-keres/feed/ 1 Best chess players never to become World Champion – part one – Viktor Korchnoi https://chessentials.com/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion/ https://chessentials.com/best-chess-players-never-to-become-world-champion/#respond Mon, 27 Mar 2017 17:17:26 +0000 https://chessentials.com/?p=1603 In the history of the chess there were only sixteen undisputed World Champions. The names  of those masters who have managed to win the most valuable chess title are rather well known. Every chess player...

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The post Best chess players never to become World Champion – part one – Viktor Korchnoi appeared first on Chessentials.

]]> In the history of the chess there were only sixteen undisputed World Champions.

The names  of those masters who have managed to win the most valuable chess title are rather well known. Every chess player has heard about Wilhelm Steinitz, Jose Raul Capablanca or that Dutch guy who managed to beat Alexandar Alekhine.

Max Euwe1 cropped
I am just kidding guys… It is not my intention to belittle Max Euwe’s lucky match win in any regard whatsoever

Every world chess champion had to win a World Championship Match in order to win the title (if we disregard Botvinnik).

However, since history is written mainly by the winners, we think that chess public sometimes fails to give enough credit to those players who participated on the losing side of historical chess battles.

Therefore, in this post we will portray three best chess players who never became World Champions.

While choosing three best eternal seconds, we were guided by following criteria:

  • results in World Championship context and personal score against World Champions
  • chess consistency (results in chess tournaments throughout career)
  • chess longetivity 

Finally, we have concluded that the following three players deserve their mention on this list.

As  with any list starting with “best”, there might be some subjectivity involved. But still, let us proceed with our article with the player widely regarded as the GOAT of “chess losers”.

VIKTOR KORCHNOI

Korchnoi

The gold medal winner of this highly irrelevant contest is the Soviet Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi. 

I think that the decision to put him on the first place won’t find many opponents, since he is widely regarded as the greatest player never to become World Champion.

Even Garry Kasparov, in his historical masterpiece about his great predecessors, devotes a half of the book to the Viktor the Terrible. 

To paraphrase Rowan Atkinson here, “What is it that Viktor has got, that makes him stand apart from other non World Champions?”

We will try to dissect the answer on the basis of the criteria mentioned above:

a) Participation in the World Championship matches

During the chess history there have been numerous chess rivalries.

And while rivalries between World Champions such as Spassky – Fischer or Karpov – Kasparov, are well known even to the people who don’t play chess, the intense and controversial rivalry between Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov is to my mind somewhat underestimated.

I believe that there is a couple of reasons for that underestimation:

  • Since Korchnoi was never a World Champion, he never got the publicity that the title brings
  • Long battles between Korchnoi and Karpov were overshadowed by the later matches between Karpov and Kasparov
  • Spassky – Fischer match happened at the height of the Cold War, and therefore it represented a clash of ideologies. Karpov and Korchnoi matches represented a fight between the model Soviet citizen (Karpov) and the defector (Korchnoi has requested political asylum in Holland in 1976).

It is worth remembering that both during Fischer – Spassky and Karpov – Korchnoi matches, Leonid Brezhnev was the head of the SSSR. And whereas it was foolish to expect that he would seriously harm Fischer with the whole USA behind him, it is much more likely that something might have happened to Korchnoi had he won any of the matches against Karpov (there are certain rumors of his potential liquidation, but everything said in this paragraph is mostly my speculation.; for more details about political situation during the Karpov – Korchnoi matches, I cannot recommend the aforementioned Kasparov’s book highly enough).

Naturally, everything happening behind the scenes would have been irrelevant if Korchnoi wasn’t a serious contender in the purely chess sense.

Let us take a deeper look at the three Karpov – Korchnoi matches and their key moments.

Hint: For game analysis, click on any move, and the pop-up board will appear.

1974. chess candidates final in moscow

The first time Korchnoi “missed” his opportunity was technically not a World Championship match, but a final match of the 1974 chess Candidates cycle.

However, as it later turned out, due to Fischer’s decision to end his career, the winner of this match was destined to become the new World Champion.

The match itself was merely a beginning, and not a culmination of the rivalry between these two players.

The initial phase of the match was dominated by Karpov. After using Efim Petrovich Geller’s preparation to breach opponent’s Sicilian Dragon in the 2nd game, Karpov scored another victory in the 6th game as well, after Korchnoi self-destructed from the Black side of the Petrov defence.

However, after the 6th game there followed a pattern that would occur regularly in Karpov’s matches later: a long series of 9 draws.

Then came the 17th game. A highly characteristical game in which Korchnoi blundered after enjoying a better positon for the most of the game:

At this point it seemed that the match is virtually over. Suprisingly though, Korchnoi won the 19th and the 21st game.

21st game especially is very shocking. Judging purely by the moves one would attribute it to the 3rd category tournament rather than to a Candidates final.

Drawing conclusions from the game above, it seems like Karpov relaxed prematurely, which greatly aggravated his match situation. However, he managed to pull himself together and the match ended with three draws and with the overall score 12 1/2 – 11 1/2.

With hindsight, this psychological trait cost Karpov greatly throughout his career. As we will observe later, it almost cost him the match in Baguio City. And it certainly cost him when he failed to finish Kasparov off in their 1984. match, after leading 5-0. But that is a theme for another article.

1978. world championship match in Baguio City

After the 1974. cycle, in a certain interview which Korchnoi gave to B.Kazic for the Yugoslav newspaper Politika, he basically trash talked Karpov and said, among other things, that: “He cannot say that a brilliant future awaits him”.

The result? The authorities banned him from playing in international tournaments and they reduced his grandmaster stipend by one third.

The result? Defection to the West in July of 1976 after requesting asylum in Holland.  In those times this act was regarded as an act of treason against SSSR and suddenly Korchnoi became persona non grata in the Soviet World.  (source: Kasparov’s book On my great Predecessors, part V).

The result? Highly controversial and politicaly tense match in which many things were happening off the board:

  • Korchnoi wearing sunglasses during the games
  • Korchnoi having a pair of yogis who were denied of access to the 32th game
  • The infamous Dr.Zukhar, Karpov’s “psychological consultant” who sat in the front rows during the games and disturbed Korchnoi so much that he requested his removal from the playing hall. The battle for and against dr. Zukhar was fought throughout the whole match.

More details about off the board controversy can be found here.

Naturally, as stated earlier. everything happening off the board would have been irrelevant had Korchnoi been truly inferior at the board. However, his amazing work-ethic combined with psychological relief after escaping to the West resulted in him reaching a peak when he was 47 years old.

Therefore, he was by no means inferior to Karpov. The chess content was extremely rich and interesting, and judging by the games it would by no means by undeserved if Korchnoi really became a champion in this match.

However, he didn’t manage to endure the tense psychological battle as he had some truly amazing misses and also committed some fatal blunders as well.

Take the 5th game of the match as an example. The first four games ended in a draw, and here Korchnoi missed a nice opportunity to open his account in the match:

If you were stupified by the fact that Korchnoi has missed a simple two move tactic, than perhaps it is a good idea to skip the 17th game completely.

At that moment in the match, Karpov was leading 3-1 and Korchnoi really needed a win badly. The events of the game were partially described in the previous post, but here is the complete score sheet:

You would expect Korchnoi to crumble completely after suffering such a blow.

However, at this point the aforementioned psychological trait of Karpov appeared as he missed some serious chances to end the match completely in his ensuing White games.

Take for instance the position taken from game 20:

Pretty depressing for Black, right?

Still, amazingly enough, Karpov’s killer instinct failed him at some crucial moments such as in the game above (which was drawn in the end).

And by giving Korchnoi these breathing chances he restored the latter’s faith of overall success.

It is no wonder that Korchnoi won the very next, 21st game.

However, after a series of 5 draws, it seemed that match is coming to the end after Karpov won the 27th game. Few believed in Korchnoi’s chances with the score standing at 5-2 in Karpov’s favour.

However, Korchnoi refused to go away.

I was particularly impressed by his technical display from the Black side of the Open Ruy Lopez in the 28th game:

After this brilliancy, Korchnoi also won the 29th and the 31st game, causing the Red alert in the Soviet camp. Just one more win, and the title of World Chess Champion would once again fall into hands of the non- Soviet player.

Therefore, after full mobilization, Korchnoi’s yogis were removed, Dr. Zukhar was reinstalled in the front seats, and 32nd game happened:

A dramatic end to a dramatic match. Surely as in any match, there were missed chances on both sides, but somehow one gets the feeling that Korchnoi was the one who missed more and at more important moments as well.

This is probably the closest Korchnoi has come toward clinching the World Championship title. It was an encounter between two evenly matched players, in which one, to paraphrase George Orwell, proved to be “Slightly more evenly matched than the other.”

This classic quote from the book Animal farm is still one of my favourites

Who knows how chess history would have gone if Dr. Zukhar wasn’t seating in the front row during that fatal 32nd game?

1981. world championship match in Merano

Three years after their Baguio City encounter, the main protagonists met again in the Italian city of Merano. Having beaten Petrosian, Polugaevsky and Hüebner, Korchnoi earned himself another opportunity to unnerve the social authorities and try to snatch the World Championship title from Karpov’s hands.

Political issues were once again dominating the pre-match negotiations and agreements. At the time, Korchnoi’s son and wife were both still living in the SSSR, with authorities not allowing them to leave the country. When Korchnoi’s son received an invitation to join the army, Korchnoi tried to publicize this issue as he threatened not to play until his family was released.

Alas, his family wasn’t released, his son was imprisoned for evading the army service, and Korchnoi still played the match (source: chessgames about Merano 1981).

Similarly as in Baguio city, in Merano Korchnoi played under the Swiss flag. He took the Swiss citizenship back in 1978.

However, considering the events described above, together with Korchnoi’s age and the colossal team of Grandmasters, psychologists and seconds behind Karpov, it is no wonder that this match was much more one – sided than the previous one (later it became widely known as the Massacre in Merano).

Korchnoi displayed uncertain play right from beginning, as he lost games 1,2 and 4.  Karpov was armed to the teeth with novelties and kept posing some serious problems  with the White pieces to Korchnoi, who avoided his favourite French defense in favour of Spanish and Petroff defenses.

I was especially impressed with Karpov’s piece of preparation displayed in the 14th game. At that particular moment in match the score was standing at 4-2 in Karpov’s favour.

Still, even after this game, with the overwhelming 5-2 lead, Karpov wasn’t assured of his victory, as the shadow of the Baguio city was still very clearly in everyone’s memory.

However, this time there were no miracles and no potential comebacks, as another breaching of the Open Ruy Lopez in the 18th game meant Korcnhoi’s final capitulation:

To wrap it up, there is no other player in the chess history that has been so close to the ultimate chess title on THAT MANY occasions.

Unfortunately for Korchnoi, he lived in the era of another great champion who also had the support of whole Soviet machinery behind him.

If I may indulge into blasphemy here, I quite like the fantasy of Korchnoi shouting the words of Jesus Christ at Karpov:

” Three times you have denied me..”

Oh, have I mentioned that Korchnoi has also reached the final stage of the 1968 Candidates cycle, where he lost to the dominating Spassky?

In total he participated in 10 Candidates cycles. Quite an amazing feat. Which leads us to the next part of the article, and that is:

b) Chess longetivity and consistency

There is a certain saying that chessplayers like when they are trying to justify the choice of chess as a permanent hobby:

” The good thing with chess is that, compared to other sports, you can play it untill your very last days.”

Viktor Korchnoi is the best example that confirms the validity of this saying.

Probably not other player can match the results Korchnoi’s results during his long career.

The most amazing thing is that Korchnoi continued to play the tournaments of the highest calibre even in his 70s and 80s.

Some of the feats he accomplished throughout his impressive career include:

  • Korchnoi was a fearless tournament fighter. His impressive career includes at least 200 victories in international invitation tournaments, international open tournaments and FIDE official contest held with classical time control. Chronological list of Korchnoi’s first prizes is available at the following link: 1st Prize chronology – www.chessdiagonals.ch – Viktor Korchnoi
  • Prior to his defection to West in 1976., he was also the sole winner in four Soviet Championships. Only Botvinnik and Tal, both with six wins, have more (there is also Peter Svidler with seven wins in the modern era, although Russian Superfinal is considerably weaker nowadays). One has to bear in mind that Korchnoi achieved his peak AFTER his defection. Therefore, this record is truly a remarkable achievement.
  • He beat the future Fide World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov in a match when he was 70 years old (the age difference between the players was 53 years!!)
  • He beat the future number two Fabiano Caruana  in 2011, when he was 80 years old (!!!)
  • He was a top 100 member when he was 70 years old
  • Korchnoi had an impressive record against World Champions:
    1. An equal score against  Mikhail Botvinnik (1-1 in terms of decisive games)
    2. A highly positive score against Mikhail Tal (13-4 in terms of decisive games in Korchnoi’s favour)
    3. Positive score against Tigran Petrosian (12-10 in terms of decisive games in Korchnoi’s favour)
    4. Positive score against Boris Spassky (21 – 16 in terms of decisive games in Korchnoi’s favour)
    5. Equal score against Robert Fischer (2-2 in terms of decisive games)

Taking everything into account, one is almost inclined to forgive him that he became…erm.. grumpy old fellow in his old days?

Okay.. let’s be honest…. Basically, he often behaved like an old prick after losing a game.

Take the following video as an example, in which he exclaims that this is the first and the last time that Sofia Polgar has won a game against him.

Or this video in which he behaves like a spoiled brat after losing to Peter Leko.

Or this interview in which he basically calls Carlsen an amateur.

However, if we disregard Korchnoi losing it a bit in his old days, we can only look at his career and bow down to the greatest player never to become World Champion.

CONCLUSION

Phew… This turned out to be quite a long one. Hopefully you enjoyed reading this post and will perhaps appreciate Korchnoi’s greatness if you weren’t familiar with it before.

In the part two of this series, we will examine the games and paths of numbers two and three on our  list  –  Paul Keres and David Bronstein.

The post Best chess players never to become World Champion – part one – Viktor Korchnoi appeared first on Chessentials.

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