It's All About Chess For Korchnoi

by Quah Seng Sun

Never a world chess champion, Viktor Korchnoi nevertheless lives for the game.

AMONG all the chess professionals, there is only one I know of who can truly claim that chess is his life. He’s not even a world chess champion. He came close to becoming one in 1978 when he lost what was to be known as the Battle of Baguio.

I’m referring, of course, to Viktor Korchnoi, a chess grandmaster from the former Soviet Union who is now a Swiss citizen and a hugely respected world senior chess figure.
From his youth until today, Korchnoi, 78, has done nothing but play chess. Twice, in 1978 and 1981, after defecting from the Soviet Union, he challenged Anatoly Karpov for the world title and lost.


In 1974, he played Karpov in the final of the Challenger matches and again lost. Karpov went on to be crowned as world champion after Bobby Fischer forfeited his defence of the title.




Consummate chess player: From his youth until today Viktor Korchnoi has done nothing but play chess.

After 1981, Korchnoi was never able to reach the same heights in his chess career again. Nevertheless, the fire burns strong in him and he continues to compete regularly until today. In September last year, he won the 16th world senior chess championship. It was a befitting recognition for a man who has spent his whole life in the game.

In 1978, Korchnoi wrote Chess Is My Life which chronicled the challenges in his life, his struggles with the chess establishment in the Soviet Union, his defection and a small collection of games. A few years ago, he retold the story of his life in a new edition of this book.

Many other professional chess players have claimed that chess was their life. At various times, people like Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnik have said it too. But then, Karpov and later, Kasparov, were also dabbling in other things, like politics. Karpov was a member of the old Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs and president of the Soviet Peace Fund, while Kasparov is retired from competitive chess and is today an opposition figure in the new Russia.

In Malaysia, we do not have professional chess players. It may be too simplistic to say that because there are no professional players here, none of our chess players can claim their lives revolve around the game, but it’s true.

Chess for all of us here is a game, a hobby and an interesting pastime – maybe a more passionate pastime for some – but assuredly, chess is not everything in our lives.

But while some of us less passionate ones were spending the last few days doing things other than playing chess, the more passionate were participating in the national closed chess championships in Kuala Lumpur.

The championships have ended and I should have some results for you next week but for the moment, let me just say that there were 54 players in the open section and 22 players in the women’s section.

Of course, the numbers could have been better but I suppose the Malaysian Chess Federation cannot complain, seeing how details of the championships were announced rather late.


Regular readers will remember how I’ve often griped about defending champions being unwilling to defend their titles at the national closed championships. This year, I got a very pleasant surprise: both of last year’s champions – Edward Lee and Alia Anin Bakri – chose to play.
It took a lot of guts to play and it showed that they were willing to defend their titles. For this, I salute them. They brought that extra something to this year’s championships.


By the way, our chess players can certainly learn a lot from sportsmen like Rafael Nadal. When he was knocked out of the Paris tennis open on Monday, was he disappointed? Naturally, he was. But he let the moment pass. He accepted that one day, he would lose at this tennis Grand Slam event.


“I have to accept my defeat as I accept my victories,” he said and added, “I have to keep a cool head to try and analyse what I did wrong. I need to learn and you learn more when you lose than when you win. I need to work on those points on which I wasn’t good and from there, try and do better for my next tournament. So this is not a tragedy. This is sport.”


Now, this is wisdom that should apply to any game, chess included.



(published in The Star, 5 June 2009)