29 August 2016

Korchnoi's Events 1998-99 / 2014-15

After my previous Korchnoi post, Events 1976-2000, I looked at TWIC's records starting with the year 1998, and added a summary for the years 1998-99 to my index page Viktor Korchnoi's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (TMER, 1946-1977). When does Korchnoi's TMER end? Wikipedia's page, Viktor Korchnoi, says,

Korchnoi became the oldest player ever to win a national championship, when he won the 2009 Swiss championship at age 78. He won the national title again a few months after his 80th birthday in July 2011 after a playoff game with Joseph Gallagher.

Chess.com's Peter Doggers, in Viktor Korchnoi, 1931-2016 (June 2016), wrote,

Korchnoi's last recorded games were the four rapid games that he played against Wolfgang Uhlmann at the 2015 Zurich Chess Challenge. He also played two rapid games against the same opponent in 2014 in Leipzig.

His last classical games were from 2012, played in the Swiss Team Championship. At the end of that year, when he was 81, he suffered from a stroke, and later he had problems with his heart as well. He was scheduled to play in the 2013 Zurich Christmas Open, but withdrew due to health reasons.

TWIC's Mark Crowther covered the two Uhlmann matches in TWIC 1014 & 1059. By the time I wrote this post, I had located four events Korchnoi played in his last two years:-

There were undoubtedly other games. Korchnoi must have been the most active chess grandmaster in history.

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