International Invitational Tournaments in classical chess won by Viktor Korchnoi

Palmarès of Viktor Korchnoi's more than sixty major International Invitation GM tournament wins in classical chess (excluding International Open, excluding national Championships, excluding won matches, excluding victories in team events and individual first board prizes, and excluding rapid and blitz tournaments):

          • International Invitation (all-play-all) round robin closed tournaments in classical chess (including two wins of official Interzonal tournament), full list:

          • Bucharest 1954 (winning at first tournament abroad, ahead of Nezhmetdinov, earning IM title by FIDE);  Hastings 1955/56 (winning with Olafsson, ahead of Ivkov, Taimanov; first individual participation in the west, Viktor Korchnoi is awarded the GM title by FIDE), Kraków 1959; Buenos Aires (150th Anniversary May Revolution) 1960 (alongside with Reshevsky). Competing in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Medicine, where Bobby Fischer, already a Candidate in the previous year, is doing unexpectedly bad, coming in below 50%, amongst others Szabo on third position, Rossetto, Taimanov, Guimard, Evans, Olafsson, Unzicker, Gligoric, Benko, Uhlmann, Ivkov, Pachman, Wexler (beating Fischer), Wade (beating Korchnoi), and legendary Eliskases. All-play-all with 20 players, those were the days!, Cordoba 1960; Budapest (Maróczy Memorial) 1961 (2 points ahead of Bronstein); Havana (Capablanca Memorial) 1963 (ahead of Geller, Pachmann, Tal); Yerevan 1965 (international tournament in the armenian city Yerevan, organized to honour their world champion Petrosian, who was shared second with Stein, Portisch as best foreigner came in as fifth); Gyula (Asztalos-Memorial) 1965, performing stratospheric 14.5/15p.! Viktor Korchnoi is no. 1 of the world in historical ELO (chessmetrics by Jefff Sonas) after winning Gyula (Asztalos Memorial), August 1965;

            Korchnoi is achieving nine wins in individual international (invitation or official) tournaments out of  ten consecutive entries! The only tournament not to win was the (official) Sousse Interzonal 1967, with Korchnoi as runner-up behind Larsen. These nine won Invitation tournaments in a row: Bucharest 1966; Sochi (Chigorin Memorial) 1966 (Polugaevsky took second place, Spassky tied for joint fifth place); Budva 1967 (ahead of Tal, Gligoric, and Geller: USSR vs. YUG exceptionally played as an individual tournament); Leningrad International (50th Anniversary October Revolution) 1967 (ahead of Kholmov, Barcza, Taimanov); Wijk aan Zee (Hoogovens) 1968 (won at first participation!, full three points ahead of the next guys, the trio Portisch, Hort, and Tal); Palma de Mallorca 1968 (featuring the World Champion Petrosian, his Challenger Spassky, Gligoric, and Larsen), Sarajevo (Bosna) 1969; Luhačovice 1969 (ahead of Keres), and Havana (Capablanca Memorial) 1969 (with Suetin, ahead of Gligoric, Donner, Uhlmann);

            Wijk aan Zee (Hoogovens) 1971 (ahead of Ivkov, Petrosian, Olafsson, Gligoric, second and last participation as USSR citizen); Hastings 1971/72 (with Karpov, ahead of Mecking, R. Byrne, Gligoric, Najdorf); Palma de Mallorca 1972 (with Panno, Smejkal, ahead of Andersson, Gheorghiu, Polugaevsky, Averbakh, Ljubojevic); Leningrad (IZT) 1973 (together with Karpov, this was the last international tournament with both Karpov and Korchnoi for more than a decade (!) because of the boycott established after Korchnoi emigrated), Amsterdam (IBM) 1976 (with Miles, emigration just after this tournament); Montreux (Palace) 1977; Beersheba 1978, Sao Paulo 1979 (with Ljubojevic); Buenos Aires (Konex-Canon) 1979 (again with Ljubojevic); GP South Africa (Oude Meester, in four cities) 1979, Biel 1979, London (Phillips & Drew Kings) 1980 (with Miles, Andersson); Rome 1981; Bad Kissingen 1981 (full three points ahead of Hort, Seirawan, then Sosonko); Rome 1982 (with Pinter); Wijk aan Zee (Hoogovens) 1984 (with Beliavsky); Sarajevo (Bosna) 1984 (with Timman); Beersheba 1984 (with Kudrin); Titograd (40th Anniversary of Liberation of the city) 1984 (with Velimirović, Drago's biggest success, ahead of Tal, all three attacking players par excellence, it was Korchnoi's first classical game with Tal since 1975); Brussels (OHRA) 1985 (ahead of Spassky); Tilburg (Interpolis) 1985 (with Hübner, Miles, ahead of Polugaevsky, Ljubojevic, Timman); Zagreb (IZT) 1987; Beersheba 1987 (with Speelman); Wijk aan Zee 1987 (with Short); Royan 1988; Amsterdam (OHRA) 1988 (ahead of Nunn), Clermont Ferrand (200th Anniversary of French Revolution) 1989(=); Beersheba 1990; Rotterdam (Euwe Memorial) 1990 (double rounded mini-tournament with four top ten players);

            Korchnoi is sixty years young, according to the (then) regulations in a senior stautus; of course, that doesn't bother him to play on and win: Las Palmas 1991 (with Topalov and Franco Ocampos); Harlingen 1991 (ahead of Timman, Piket); Antwerp (Volmac, later labelled Lost Boys) 1993 (with Piket); Ostrava 1994; San Francisco "Pan Pacific" (50th Anniversary of the sigining of the United Nations' charter in San Francisco) 1995 (ahead of Nunn, Gulko, DeFirmian, Hübner); Magistral de Madrid 1995 (aged 64 years; ahead of Salov, then ranked no. 3= of the world, in a field with seven top-25 players, including Timman and Short, both in the mid-1990s Challenger in a title match, Jussupow, Beliavsky, plus Judit Polgar); Malmö (Sigeman & Co) 1996; St. Petersburg International 1997 (with Khalifman, Salov); Enghien-les-Bains 1997 (with Bacrot); Sarajevo (Bosna) 1998 (third participation, third win, scoring in total at Bosna +20 =16 -1); Bad Homburg 1998 (first big international chess tournament to use the "soccer scoring", Korchnoi wins with 19 points, four points ahead of runner-up Svidler, already a top-ten player, followed by Jussupow and Torre with 13 points each); Arnhem (Sonsbeek SNS) 1999 (with Sadler); Biel 2001 (just a few months after Korchnoi's 70th birthday, double round robin super-tournament, victory as clear first ahead of established Svidler, Gelfand, Grischuk, Lautier, and Pelletier who had one win and one loss against his fellow countryman); Basel (ITAG Masters) 2003; Paks (Marx Gyoergy Memorial) 2004; Banja Luka 2007 (Garry took Banja at his personal premiere aged 16, Viktor took Banja at his personal premiere aged 76).

Hastings, Wijk aan Zee, Sarajevo (Bosna), Havana (Capablanca Memorial)

Please compare the overall biography of Viktor Korchnoi, and consult also the sub-pages Hastings *1920/21 (with first summer congress 1895), Wijk aan Zee / Beverwijk *1938, Sarajevo (Bosna) *1957, Havana et al. (Capablanca Memorial) *1962 under the page "The Monuments":


Hastings
*1920/21 - www.chessdiagonals.ch


Wijk aan Zee *1938 - www.chessdiagonals.ch

Sarajevo *1957 - www.chessdiagonals.ch

Havana *1962 - www.chessdiagonals.ch

Biel / Bienne International Chess Festival

The 50th consecutive and jubilee edition of the Festival has been held in 2017.

Biel Festival - www.chessdiagonals.ch 

Biel Interzonals - www.chessdiagonals.ch 

Winners at Biel - www.chessdiagonals.ch

Banja Luka (International Invitation Tournament)

🙂 Banja Luka got an extra-page as well, there is no other in the world wide web!

Banja Luka, known for famous tournament wins by Kasparov at age of 16 (first participation), Korchnoi at age of 76 (first participation), and Chiburdanidze (first particpation, ahead of a bunch of male GMs including Short and Psakhis), has been played nine times in unregular intervals between 1974 and 2008. See under the page "Hall of Fame":

Banja Luka - www.chessdiagonals.ch

Malmö (International Invitation Tournament)

🙂 Sigeman & Co. got also an extra-page, this fine international invitation tournament, played annually in Malmö deserves it! 

Invitation tournament (1st edition in 1993, 22nd edition in 2014; relaunched as TePe Sigeman & Co. in 2017), amongst others, the winner list is including notables as Korchnoi, Timman, Short, Hellers, LautierJudit Polgar, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Caruana, Giri, or So.

Three former or future World Chess Champion played at Sigeman & Co. International in Malmö: Magnus Carlsen, Boris Spassky and Vasily Smyslov. See under the page "Hall of Fame":

History: Malmö - www.chessdiagonals.ch

More

More background information and links to strong international invitation tournament series (specially Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas, Magistral de Madrid, London Phillips & Drew Kings, Rome, IBM-Amsterdam, OHRA-Amsterdam and Brussels, Enghien, Euwe-Memorial, Asztalos Memorial, Maróczy Memorial, Chigorin Memorial or Marx Gyoergy Memorial), where Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi also won, are add to the already portrayed series of Malmö Sigeman & Co., Banja Luka, Biel / Bienne, Capablanca Memorial, Bosna Sarajevo, Wiijk aan Zee, and Hastings.