World Chess Championship 1978

World Chess Championship 1978

	Defending champion	Challenger
	Anatoly Karpov	Viktor Korchnoi
	6 Scores 5
	Born 23 May 1951 27 years old	Born 23 March 1931 47 years old
	Winner of the 1975 World Chess Championship	Winner of the 1977 Candidates Tournament
	Rating: 2725 (World No. 1)	Rating: 2665 (World No. 2)
← 1975 1981 →

The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio, Philippines, from July 18 to October 18, 1978. Karpov won, thereby retaining the title.

The match had many bizarre incidents. Karpov's team included noted Soviet psychologist and hypnotherapist Vladimir Petrovich Zukhar [ru], while Korchnoi enlisted the help of two American Ananda Marga yoga specialists who had recently been convicted of attempted murder and released on bail.^[1][2] There was more controversy off the board, with histrionics ranging from X-raying of chairs, protests about the flags used on the board and Korchnoi's complaints that Zukhar, sitting in the front row, attempted to hypnotise him.^[3] When Karpov's team sent him a blueberry yogurt during a game without any request for one by Karpov, the Korchnoi team protested, claiming it could be some kind of code. They later said this was intended as a parody of earlier protests, but it was taken seriously at the time.^[4]

In quality of play, the match itself never measured up to the press headlines that it generated, although as a sporting contest it had its share of excitement. The match would go to the first player to win six games, draws not counting. After 17 games, Karpov had a 4–1 lead. Korchnoi won game 21, but Karpov won game 27, putting him on the brink of victory with a 5–2 lead. Korchnoi fought back, scoring three wins and one draw in the next four games, to equalise the match at 5–5 after 31 games. However, Karpov won the very next game, and the match, by 6–5 with 21 draws.^[5]