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Viktor Korchnoi, the man who came close to being world champion many times but was unfortunately never able to seal the deal, passed away last week. Korchnoi had a long chess career that began in 1947 when he became the USSR Junior Champion. He played into his 70s, winning a Swiss National Championship in 2009 when he was 78.

He had a series of close matches with Anatoly Karpov. Karpov won and went on to become the champion because Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title, which meant that the Korchnoi-Karpov bout was the de facto title fight.

Born in 1931, a young Korchnoi even lived through the 872-day siege of Leningrad. He eventually defected from the USSR in 1974 at age of 45 and lived out his days in Switzerland. He was ranked in the top 100 into his 80s. Along the way, he became a prolific novelist as well.

The video above is an ad for a brand of milk products. The chess champion loses to a cow and the sight is not pretty.

Chess players seem to always be made fun of in commercials. Here's a co-passenger explaining to Vishwanathan Anand why he can't make a living playing chess.

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Here's grandmaster Gary Kasparov being bamboozled by a...young kid.

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