Viktor Kortchnoi

Viktor Kortchnoi (1931–2016), born in Leningrad,
was a Soviet-Swiss chess grandmaster and one of the strongest players never to become World Champion.
He won the Soviet Championship four times and ranked among the world’s elite for several decades.
In 1976, Kortchnoi defected from the Soviet Union during a tournament and later settled in Switzerland.
As Anatoly Karpov’s challenger, he contested two highly politicised World Championship matches in 1978 and 1981.
Kortchnoi remained a formidable tournament player well into old age,
becoming World Senior Champion in 2006 and Swiss Champion in 2009 at the age of 78.
His exceptionally long career spanned generations, from Mikhail Botvinnik and Bobby Fischer to Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen.
For ChessBase, he recorded the autobiographical video series My Life for Chess.