Viktor Korchnoi vs Alexei Shirov
Two chess prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
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The record, side by side
| Viktor Korchnoi | Alexei Shirov | |
| Field | Sports | Sports |
| Sub-field | Chess | Chess |
| Born | 1931 | 1972 |
| Died | 2016 | living / not documented |
| Country of birth | Russia | Spain |
| Star sign | Pisces | Cancer |
Who they are
Viktor Korchnoi
There are players who fight for the World Championship, and there are fighters who make the World Championship tremble. Viktor Korchnoi was the second kind — a man of such consuming competitive fury that he challenged for the chess crown twice in the late 1970s under conditions that would have broken most players: stripped of Soviet support, separated from his family held hostage in the USSR, playing across the board from the Soviet machine's handpicked champion. He was known as "Viktor the Terrible," a nickname that captured something true about his nature: the ferocity, the…
Full biography of Viktor Korchnoi →
Alexei Shirov
There is a move in a 1998 game between Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov that chess players call simply "the Shirov move." It is a bishop sacrifice — Bh3!! — made in a complex middlegame position in the Benoni Defense, in a game that Shirov was playing from behind. The move appears, at first and second and third glance, to be simply wrong. Bishops do not belong on h3 in such positions; the move gives material without obvious compensation; no computer engine of the era would have found it. Shirov found it, played it, and…
Full biography of Alexei Shirov →
What they share
- Both are held here under Sports.
- Same sub-field: Chess.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Born in different countries: Russia and Spain.
- 41 years separate their births (1931 and 1972).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Viktor Korchnoi or Alexei Shirov?
- Viktor Korchnoi. Viktor Korchnoi was born in 1931, Alexei Shirov in 1972.
- What field is each of them in?
- Viktor Korchnoi is filed under Sports (Chess). Alexei Shirov is filed under Sports (Chess).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.