Book Recap #20- Discussing GM Viktor Korchnoi's Chess Is My Life with John Fernandez

We are back for another edition of Chess Books Recaptured. This month we take a brief break from discussing books that are focused on chess improvement and discuss the eventful, insightful, autobiography, Chess is My Life, by legendary GM Viktor Korchnoi. Korchnoi, of course, was a 4 time Soviet champion, who eventually emigrated to Switzerland, and twice challenged GM Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship.  My guest co-host this month is John Fernandez. In addition to being an old friend of mine, John is a member of the US Chess Executive Board, a USCF expert, and was an early admin and employee of the Internet Chess Club. By day, he works as a Senior Vice President of Marketing at Glia, and he is also the father of twins. John has had some memorable interactions with GM Korchnoi, so it was great to hear those, as well as to discuss the book of this legendarily irascible chess figure. As you will hear, this 2 hour podcast only scratches the surface of Korchnoi’s legacy, so you might want to click through to some of the links below, which are given with timestamps.  0:00- Why did we pick Korchnoi’s Chess is My Life? Mentioned: Book Recap #17 of Bronstein’s Zurich 1953, Korchnoi’s Best Games Volume 1 and Volume 2 5:30- We go over Korchnoi’s amazing chess resume and exceptional life story.  Mentioned: Caruana-Korchnoi 2011  15:30- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessmood.com  Chessmood offers a huge library of instructive videos. You can hear GM Avetik Grigoryan on Episode 192 of Perpetual Chess. Be sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel here.  16:00- Perpetual Chess is also brought you in part by Chess.com!  Among their many resources, you can check out their drills here and their vision trainer here.   17:00- We read a few excerpts from the Preface (by Kasparov), the Foreword(by GM Sergey Ivanov) and the Prologue by Korchnoi himself and discuss Korchnoi’s playing style.  Mentioned: Book Recap #1 Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Closing Gambit, Episode 235 with Joe Posnanski   29:15- Perp