Moscow: Chess Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who defected from the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1976 and then came within one game of beating arch-rival Anatoly Karpov for the world championship, has died at the age of 85, the Russian Chess Federation said on Monday.
The 1978 showdown in the Philippines between the dissident exile and the model Communist champion was one of the great grudge matches in the history of chess.
Korchnoi, virtually written off by commentators after his opponent surged into a 5-2 lead, fought back to level the scores before a rattled and exhausted Karpov rallied to defeat him in the final game.
"The chess world loses its greatest fighter," Viswanathan Anand of tweeted.