Svetozar Gligorić | |
|---|---|
 Gligorić in 1966 | |
| Country | Yugoslavia |
| Born | (1923-02-02)2 February 1923 Belgrade,Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes |
| Died | 14 August 2012(2012-08-14) (aged 89) Belgrade, Serbia |
| Title | Grandmaster (1951) |
| Peak rating | 2600 (July 1971) |
| Peak ranking | No. 15 (July 1971) |
Svetozar Gligorić (Serbian Cyrillic:Светозар Глигорић; 2 February 1923 – 14 August 2012) was aSerbian andYugoslavchess grandmaster and musician. He won thechampionship of Yugoslavia a record 11 times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia and Yugoslavia. In 1958, he was declaredthe best athlete of Yugoslavia.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Gligorić was one of the top players in the world reaching theCandidates Tournament multiple times. During his career he won both team (1950) and individual board 1 (1958) gold medals at theChess Olympiad thus becoming one of the few players in chess history to do so (along withKashdan,Rubinstein,Botvinnik,Petrosian,Spassky,Karpov,Korchnoi,Kasparov,Ivanchuk,Aronian,Ding andGukesh). He was also among the world's most popular players, owing to his globe-trotting tournament schedule and a particularly engaging personality, reflected in the title of his autobiography,I Play Against Pieces (i.e., without hostility toward the opponent, and not differently against different players for "psychological" reasons; playing "the board and not the man").
Gligorić was born inBelgrade to a poor family. According to his recollections, his first exposure to chess was as a small child watching patrons play in a neighborhood bar. He began to play at the age of eleven, when taught by a boarder taken in by his mother (his father had died by this time). Lacking achess set, he made one for himself by carving pieces from corks from wine bottles—a story paralleling the formative years of his contemporary, the renownedEstonian grandmasterPaul Keres.
Gligorić was a good student during his youth, with both academic and athletic successes that famously led to him to be invited to represent his school at a birthday celebration for Prince Peter, who later became KingPeter II of Yugoslavia. He later recounted toInternational MasterDavid Levy (who chronicled his chess career inThe Chess of Gligoric) his distress at attending this gala event wearing poor clothing stemming from his family's impoverished condition. His first tournament success came in 1938 when he won the Belgrade Chess Club championship; however, World War II interrupted his chess progress for a time. During the war, Gligorić was a member of apartisan unit. A chance encounter with a chess-playing partisan officer led to his removal from combat.
Following World War II, Gligorić worked for several years as a journalist and organizer of chess tournaments. He continued to progress as a player and was awarded theInternational Master (IM) title in 1950 and theGrandmaster (GM) title in 1951, eventually making the transition to full-time chess professional. He continued active tournament play well into his sixties.
In his eighties Gligorić turned to music even releasing an album in Belgrade consisting of 12 compositions mostly jazz, rap and blues.[1]
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
Representing Yugoslavia | ||
Men'schess | ||
| Olympiad | ||
 | 1950 Dubrovnik | Open team |
 | 1952 Helsinki | Open team |
| 1954 Amsterdam | Open team |
 | 1956 Moscow | Open team |
| 1958 Munich | Open team |
| 1958 Munich | Individual board 1 |
| 1960 Leipzig | Open team |
| 1962 Varna | Open team |
| 1964 Tel Aviv | Open team |
| 1968 Lugano | Open team |
| 1970 Siegen | Open team |
| 1972 Skopje | Open team |
| 1974 Nice | Open team |
| European Championship[2] | ||
| 1957 Vienna | Open team |
| 1961 Oberhausen | Open team |
| 1965 Hamburg | Open team |
| 1965 Hamburg | Individual board 2[3] |
| 1970 Kapfenberg | Individual board 1[4] |
| 1973 Bath | Open team |
| 1973 Bath | Individual board 1[5] |
| 1977 Moscow | Open team |
| 1980 Skara | Individual board 2[6] |
| 1983 Plovdiv | Open team |
| 1983 Plovdiv | Individual board 2[7] |
In the 1950s and 1960s, Gligorić was amongst the world elite, with a number of tournament victories to his credit while contesting three Candidates events and forming lifelong friendships withTigran Petrosian,Mikhail Botvinnik,Miguel Najdorf,Efim Geller,Mikhail Tal andBobby Fischer, the last during theCandidates Tournament in 1959. He was Yugoslav champion in 1947 (joint), 1948 (joint), 1949, 1950, 1956, 1957, 1958 (joint), 1959, 1960, 1963 and 1966.
He represented his nativeYugoslavia with great success in fifteenChess Olympiads from 1950 to 1982 (thirteen times onfirst board), playing 223 games (+88−26=109). In the first post-war Olympiad, on home soil atDubrovnik 1950, Gligoric played on first board and led Yugoslavia to a historic result, the team gold medal. The Yugoslav team was usually second or third in the world during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s which led to Gligorić becoming the man with the most team-medals in the history of the Chess Olympiad (1 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze medals) and one of only 13 players with both team and individual board 1 gold medals. On top of that, he won 11 medals at European championship (6 team medals and 5 board medals) including individual board 1 gold medal in 1973.
His list of first-place finishes in international chess competitions is one of the longest and includes such events asMar del Plata 1950 and 1953,Stockholm 1954,Belgrade 1964,Manila 1968,Lone Pine 1972 and 1979, etc. He was also a regular competitor in the series of great tournaments held atHastings, with wins (or ties for first) in 1951–52, 1956–57, 1959–60, 1960–61 and 1962–63. His five wins and shared wins at Hastings remains a record for the event.
Some other notable results include 2nd place at Zurich in 1959,[8] half a point behind Tal, but ahead of Fischer andPaul Keres, 2nd place in Buenos Aires 1955,[9] 3rd in Mar del Plata 1955,[10] 4th in Havana 1962,[11] 2nd in Reykjavik 1964[12] and 4th in the Alekhine Memorial held in Moscow in 1956.[13] Among 18 leading Grandmasters contesting for the title Gligorić was placed behind Botvinnik, Smyslov andMark Taimanov, but ahead of Najdorf, Paul Keres andDavid Bronstein. Gligorić was the only non-Soviet player to have a plus score against the Soviet GMs. This era in Gligorić's career lead Bronstein to opine that Gligoric was one of the top three players in the world.[14]
His record in world championship qualifying events was mixed. He was a regular competitor in Zonal andInterzonal competitions with several successes, e.g. zonal wins in 1951, 1960 (joint), 1963, 1966, and 1969 (joint) and finishes at the Interzonals of1952,1958 and1967 high enough to qualify him for the final Candidates events the following years. However, he was not as successful in any of the Candidates events, finishing 13th in the 1953, 5th in 1959Candidates Tournaments and a match loss toMikhail Tal in the quarterfinals of the1968 Candidates match series.
Two years later, in 1970, Gligorić participated in one of the greatest chess events of the 20th century, amatch between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. That year,Belgrade gathered literally all the best players in the world from both sides ofIron Curtain, among them Gligorić, who played on the fifth board for Team World. The Soviets, more difficult than expected, confirmed their superiority with a score of 20½-19½.
Gligorić had the following record against some of the grandmasters he played against[15]:
Players who have been World Champions in boldface
Max Euwe +2−0=5
Mikhail Botvinnik +2−2=6Vasily Smyslov +6−8=28Tigran Petrosian +8−11=19Mikhail Tal +2−10=22Boris Spassky +0−6=16
Bobby Fischer +4−6=6Anatoly Karpov +0−4=6Garry Kasparov +0−3=0In his career, Gligorić managed to defeat 6 different world champions, and his overall record against players of this caliber is 24 wins (+), 50 losses (-) and 108 draws (=). These wins include two wins against Petrosian while he was World Champion, one of which was Petrosian's first defeat since winning the title from Botvinnik in1963.[16]
Aleksandar Matanović +8−3=25
Lajos Portisch +8−12=29Efim Geller +1−4=22Ljubomir Ljubojević +7−6=16Paul Keres +2−8=15Victor Korchnoi +2−8=14
Bent Larsen +12−20=13
Ulf Andersson +6-1=10Gedeon Barcza +5−1=4
/
Miguel Najdorf +2−3=23Erich Eliskases +2−0=5Lev Polugaevsky +1−8=5Istvan Bilek +3−2=4David Bronstein +0−4=10Samuel Reshevsky +1−5=24Mark Taimanov +5−3=12Borislav Ivkov +10−2=42/Pal Benko +5−2=10
Wolfgang Unzicker +5−5=21Oscar Panno +3−0=5Laszlo Szabo +7−9=28
Friðrik Ólafsson +7−4=15
Vlastimil Hort +6−3=19Petar Trifunović +2−3=24Milan Matulović +9−2=13Jan Timman +3−4=10Gligorić was usually ranked in the top ten players of the world in the 1950s and 1960s. Whennumerical ratings were first introduced in the early 1970's, Gligorić, though nearly fifty years old, was placed fifteenth with Elo rating of 2600.[17] He remained in the top 100 until 1987 when he was 64.
In later years he was the chief arbiter in the abortedKarpov - Kasparov World Championship Match (1984/85), but turned down his appointment by FIDE to that position for theKarpov - Kasparov World Championship Match (1985). In his last public chess event, he played board 1 for the Yugoslav team in the so-called "USSR vs. Yugoslavia" match in 2007.[18][19] This match celebrated theUSSR versus Yugoslavia matches that were held from the 1950s to the 1970s, in which Gligorić had represented the Yugoslav side 14 times.[20]
On 14 August 2012, Svetozar Gligorić died from astroke at 89 years of age inBelgrade.[21][22] Gligorić was buried on 16 August 2012, at 13:30 in theAlley of the Greats at Belgrade'sNew Cemetery.[23][24]
Although he compiled a superb tournament record, it is perhaps as anopenings theorist and commentator that Gligorić will be best remembered. He made enormous contributions to the theory and practice of theKing's Indian Defence,Ruy Lopez andNimzo-Indian Defence, among others; and, particularly with the King's Indian, translated his theoretical contributions into several spectacular victories with both colours (including the notable game below).
Theoretically significant variations in the King's Indian and Ruy Lopez arenamed after him, including such critical and commonly played opening variations as the Nimzo-Indian Gligorić System(E54), the Ruy Lopez, Exchange, Gligorić Variation(C69), the Ruy Lopez Closed Breyer, Gligorić Variation(C95) and the King's Indian (Gligorić Variation)(E92). His battles withBobby Fischer in the King's Indian andSicilian Defence (particularly theNajdorf Variation, a long-time Fischer specialty) often worked out in his favour.
As a commentator, Gligorić was able to take advantage of his fluency in a number of languages and his training as a journalist, to produce lucid, interesting game annotations. He was a regular columnist forChess Review andChess Life magazines for many years, his "Game of the Month" column often amounting to a complete tutorial in the opening used in the feature game as well as a set of comprehensive game annotations. He wrote a number of chess books in several languages. One of the most notable wasFischer vs. Spassky: The Chess Match of the Century, a detailed account oftheir epic struggle for the world title in Reykjavík in 1972. He also contributed regularly to theChess Informant semi-annual (more recently, thrice-yearly) compilation of the world's most important chess games.
In 2019,FIDE established afair play award named after Gligorić. TheFair Play Svetozar Gligoric Trophy is awarded annually by a three member commission in recognition of sportsmanship, integrity and the promotion ethical behavior within chess.[25]
On September 23, 2020, the public company "Pošta Srbije" released a new postage stamps called: "Chess Giants of Serbia". In addition to Gligorić,Petar Trifunović,Boris Kostić,Milan Matulović andMilunka Lazarević were also given this honor. On that occasion, short biographies of the players depicted on these stamps were also published. The texts are given in Serbian and English, and their authors are: Gligorić's teammate from the national team and close friend, grandmasterAleksandar Matanović and sports journalist Miroslav Nešić.[26]
"The moment of death has the power to stress in a single move the achievement or the futility of a life."[27]
| h | g | f | e | d | c | b | a | ||
| 1 |              | 1 | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 8 | 8 | ||||||||
| h | g | f | e | d | c | b | a | ||
One of Gligorić's most famous games was this win against the formerworld championTigran Petrosian at the great "Tournament of Peace" held inZagreb in 1970. It displays Gligorić's virtuosity on the Black side of the King's Indian and his willingness to play for a sacrificial attack against one of history's greatest defenders. Zagreb 1970 was another Gligorić tournament success, as he tied for second (with Petrosian and others) behind Fischer, at the start of the latter's 1970–71 run of tournament and match victories.
Indeed, Gligorić was the first person to inflict a defeat on Petrosian (at the FirstPiatigorsky Cup in 1963) after he won the world title fromMikhail Botvinnik in 1963.[29]
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | The Best Athlete of Yugoslavia 1958 | Succeeded by |
