Viktor Korchnoi

[Keith Arkell]

Viktor Korchnoi died today, 6-6-2016. A monumental loss for chess. Such a big loss that I can only say a great deal or nothing at all.

[NickFaulks]

That is absolutely appalling news. I don't know whether those close to him were forewarned, but it seemed obvious to me that he would just go on forever.

[Ray Sayers]

My childhood hero. Very sad news. As Keith said, words don't really cover it.

[MJMcCready]

Do we know the cause of death? A sad loss.

[JustinHorton]

I will never forget turning on the car radio for the news, fully expecting and hoping to be told he was the new world champion, and hearing instead that he had lost the thirty-second game.

There's never been a greater sporting contest.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Some brief details here:

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/21597

"The former world championship contender had been seriously ill for some time and recently his health deteriorated. He was hospitalized last week after suffering from internal bleeding."

He did have a stroke back in December 2012.

Most of the reaction seems to be on Twitter at the moment, mostly in Russian but spreading outwards:

https://twitter.com/GMHikaru/status/739846815080718336

See also the Korchnoi hashtag on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/korchnoi

[LawrenceCooper]

https://www.chess.com/news/viktor-korch ... -2016-1214

[Mick Norris]

RIP

TWIC obituary

[Matt Mackenzie]

2016 claims another icon

[Leonard Barden]

The Guardian's obituary:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/ ... i-obituary

[Chris Rice]

Sad news indeed but I was surprised by the following extract in Leonard's article and I wondered where the evidence for this came from and whether Korchnoi would have done better than Petrosian against Fischer?

"What changed matters was Fischer’s dash for the world title in 1970-72. Before Petrosian and Korchnoi met in the 1971 candidates semi-final, the sports authorities asked which of them had the best chance against the American, who had already beaten the USSR’s Mark Taimanov and Denmark’s Bent Larsen 6-0. Korchnoi was pessimistic, but Petrosian talked up his own chance so the result was arranged, 1-0 to Petrosian with the rest drawn."

[NickFaulks]

A very unfortunate moment to revive this slur on Korchnoi's memory.

[Chris Rice]

Agreed, finding it very hard to believe that Korchnoi would have agreed to match fixing. According to Mark Week's excellent article on his blog site the story seems to have come from Karpov who let's face it wasn't best mates with Korchnoi. Korchnoi's explanation of what happened in the Petrosian match seem very plausible to me and the conclusion is he was trying very hard. Made me laugh a bit how Korchnoi wouldn't be Petrosian's second because it made him sick to watch Petrosian play. http://worldchesschampionship.blogspot. ... match.html

PS I really liked this two minute video of the end of his game vs Leko at the Dresden Olympiad which is Korchnoi gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxpCw6IduE

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Chessbase obituary:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/viktor-korchnoi-dies-at-85

[Matt Mackenzie]

As a young man Korchnoi played Grigory Levenfish (born 1889)

In his dotage he took on Carlsen and others born in the 1990s.

Over a century spanned there.