Viktor Korchnoi vs Bobby Fischer
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 | Bobby Fischer | |
| Field | Sports | Sports |
| Sub-field | Chess | Chess |
| Born | 1931 | 1943 |
| Died | 2016 | 2008 |
| Country of birth | Russia | - |
| Star sign | Pisces | Pisces |
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 →
Bobby Fischer
On a July evening in 1972, in a stark hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, two men sat down to play chess with the eyes of the world upon them. One represented the Soviet Union, the dominant chess power that had held the World Championship for twenty-four consecutive years. The other was a twenty-nine-year-old from Brooklyn who had learned the game from a pamphlet at age six, who had barely slept in weeks, who had already threatened to withdraw from the match twice, and who was now the most famous chess player on earth. Robert James Fischer…
Full biography of Bobby Fischer →
What they share
- Both are held here under Sports.
- Same sub-field: Chess.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
- Both Pisces.
Where they part
- 12 years separate their births (1931 and 1943).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Viktor Korchnoi or Bobby Fischer?
- Viktor Korchnoi. Viktor Korchnoi was born in 1931, Bobby Fischer in 1943.
- What field is each of them in?
- Viktor Korchnoi is filed under Sports (Chess). Bobby Fischer is filed under Sports (Chess).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.