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Svetozar Gligorić

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Svetozar Gligorić
Gligorić in 1966
CountryYugoslavia
Born(1923-02-02)2 February 1923
Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Died14 August 2012(2012-08-14) (aged 89)
Belgrade, Serbia
TitleGrandmaster (1951)
Peak rating2600 (July 1971)
Peak rankingNo. 15 (July 1971)

Svetozar Gligorić (Serbian Cyrillic: Светозар Глигорић; 2 February 1923 – 14 August 2012) was a Serbian and Yugoslav chess grandmaster and musician. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record 11 times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia and Yugoslavia. In 1958, he received the Golden Badge award for the best athlete of Yugoslavia.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Gligorić was one of the top players in the world reaching the Candidates Tournament multiple times. In his career he won both team (1950) and individual board 1 (1958) gold medals at the Chess Olympiad thus becoming one of the few players in chess history to do so (along with Kashdan, Rubinstein, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Spassky, Karpov, Korchnoi, Kasparov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Ding and Gukesh). 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 book, 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").

Early years

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Gligorić was born in Belgrade 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 a chess set, he made one for himself by carving pieces from corks from wine bottles—a story paralleling the formative years of his contemporary, the renowned Estonian grandmaster Paul 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 King Peter II of Yugoslavia. He later recounted to International Master David Levy (who chronicled his chess career in The 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 a partisan 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 the International Master (IM) title in 1950 and the Grandmaster (GM) title in 1951, eventually making the transition to full-time chess professional.

Chess career

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Svetozar Gligorić
Medal record
Representing  Yugoslavia
Men's chess
Olympiad
Gold medal – first place 1950 Dubrovnik Open team
Bronze medal – third place 1952 Helsinki Open team
Bronze medal – third place 1954 Amsterdam Open team
Silver medal – second place 1956 Moscow Open team
Silver medal – second place 1958 Munich Open team
Gold medal – first place 1958 Munich Individual board 1
Bronze medal – third place 1960 Leipzig Open team
Silver medal – second place 1962 Varna Open team
Silver medal – second place 1964 Tel Aviv Open team
Silver medal – second place 1968 Lugano Open team
Bronze medal – third place 1970 Siegen Open team
Bronze medal – third place 1972 Skopje Open team
Silver medal – second place 1974 Nice Open team
European Championship[1]
Silver medal – second place 1957 Vienna Open team
Silver medal – second place 1961 Oberhausen Open team
Silver medal – second place 1965 Hamburg Open team
Gold medal – first place 1965 Hamburg Individual board 2[2]
Bronze medal – third place 1970 Kapfenberg Individual board 1[3]
Silver medal – second place 1973 Bath Open team
Gold medal – first place 1973 Bath Individual board 1[4]
Bronze medal – third place 1977 Moscow Open team
Gold medal – first place 1980 Skara Individual board 2[5]
Silver medal – second place 1983 Plovdiv Open team
Gold medal – first place 1983 Plovdiv Individual board 2[6]

During the 1950s and 1960s, Gligorić was one of the world's strongest players, with a number of tournament victories to his credit and three participations in the Candidates tournaments. Thanks to his engaging personality Gligorić became a lifelong friend of many legendary players like Bobby Fischer, Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal and Miguel Najdorf. He was Yugoslav champion a record 11 times in 1947 (joint), 1948 (joint), 1949, 1950, 1956, 1957, 1958 (joint), 1959, 1960, 1963 and 1966.

He represented his native Yugoslavia with great success in fifteen Chess Olympiads between 1950 and 1982 (thirteen times on first board), playing 223 games (+88−26=109). In the first post-World War II Olympiad, on home soil at Dubrovnik 1950, Gligoric played on board 1 and led Yugoslavia to a historic result, the team gold medal.

This was during a golden age of Serbian chess, a period when Yugoslavia (led by Serbian grandmasters like Gligorić, Ivkov, Trifunović, Matanović, Matulović, Ljubojević etc.) was usually among the top three chess countries in the world which led to Gligorić becoming the man with the most team-medals in the history of the Chess Olympiad: 12 (1 gold, 6 silvers and 5 bronze medals). His best individual result was the gold medal on board 1 at the 1958 Olympiad in Munich ahead of reigning world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and former world champion Max Euwe. With this medal Gligorić became one of only 13 players (along with Kashdan, Rubinstein, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Spassky, Karpov, Korchnoi, Kasparov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Ding and Gukesh) with both team and individual board 1 gold medals at Chess Olympiad.

On top of that, he was very successful at European championship as well winning 6 team medals and 5 board medals, including individual board 1 gold medal that he won in 1973 together with Boris Spassky.

His list of first-place finishes in international chess competitions is one of the longest and includes such events as Warsaw 1947 (ahead of Smyslov and Boleslavsky), Mar del Plata 1950 and 1953 (ahead of the entire 1952 Argentina Olympic team: Najdorf, Bolbochan, Eliskases, Pilnik and Rossetto),[7] Stockholm 1954, Dallas 1957 (ahead of Reshevsky, Szabo, Larsen and Najdorf),[8] Belgrade 1962 (ahead of Ivkov) and 1969 (tied with Ivkov and Polugaevsky), Tel Aviv 1966, Manila 1968, Lone Pine (California) 1972 and 1979, Staunton Memorial 1951, Sarajevo 1962 (tied with Portisch), Los Angeles 1974 and many others. He was also a regular competitor in the series of great tournaments held at Hastings, 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 second place in Buenos Aires 1955, Hastings 1957/58 (behind Paul Keres), Zurich 1959,[9] ahead of Keres and Fischer but ½ of a point behind Tal, Hastings 1961/62 (behind Botvinnik), Reykjavik 1964 (behind Tal), great tournament in Zagreb 1970 (ahead of Petrosian, tied with Smyslov and Korchnoi, behind Fischer),[10] and Wijk aan Zee 1971 (tied with Petrosian, behind Korchnoi). Gligorić was also third in Mar del Plata 1955,[11] very strong Bled 1961 tournament (ahead of Geller and Najdorf, tied with Keres and Petrosian, behing Fischer and Tal)[12] and Havana 1952 (behind Najdorf and Reshevsky), as well as fourth in Havana 1962 (tied with Smyslov, behind Najdorf, Spassky and Polugaevsky),[13] San Antionio 1972 (ahead of Keres and Hort, behind Portisch, Karpov and Petrosian)[14] and in the 1956 Alekhine Memorial Tournament held in Moscow.[15] 16 leading grandmasters took part in this prestigious tournament, which made Gligorić's result even more valuable. The fact that Gligorić finished behind Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov and Mark Taimanov, but ahead of David Bronstein, Miguel Najdorf and Paul Keres lead Bronstein to claim that Gligoric is one of the top three players in the world at that moment.[16]

His record in world championship qualifying events was mixed. He was a regular competitor in Zonal and Interzonal competitions with several successes, e.g. zonal wins in 1951, 1960 (joint), 1963, 1966, and 1969 (joint) and 8 participations in the interzonal tournaments between 1948 and 1973 with his best result coming in 1958 when he was 2nd, half a point behind the future world champion, Mikhail Tal. During this period, the Serbian grandmaster missed only one of these tournaments in 1955. Successful performances at interzonal level in 1952, 1958 and 1967 enabled him to participate in Candidates Tournaments the following years. However, he was not that successful in any of those Candidates events, finishing 13th in the 1953, 5th in 1959 and with 3½-5½ loss against Mikhail Tal in the quarterfinals of the 1968 Candidates match series.

Two years later, in 1970, Gligorić participated in one of the greatest chess events of the 20th century, a match 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 of Iron 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.

Lifetime scores against selected grandmasters

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Gligorić had the following record against some of the grandmasters he played against[17]:
Players who have been World Champions in boldface

In 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 (=). Among the matches from which he emerged victorious, win against Fischer in the 1962 Olympiad and two wins against Petrosian (in 1963 and 1967) while he was the World Champion, stand out the most. One of those two wins was Petrosian's first defeat since he won the title against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963.[18]

Rating/Ranking

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During his prime in the 50s and 60s Gligorić was one the ten best players in the world. When Elo rating system was introduced in the early 70's, Gligorić had a rating of 2600. Good enough for a place among the 15 best players in the world despite the fact that he was almost 50 years old at the time.[19] In 1987, at the age of 64, Gligorić was among the top 100 for the last time in his career.

Later years and death

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Gligorić at his last Chess Olympiad in 1982

In 1984-85 he was the chief arbiter in the aborted marathon world title match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Gligorić turned down FIDE's offer to keep the same position in the 1985 rematch. He continued active tournament play well into his sixties. In his last public chess event, he played board 1 for the Yugoslav team in the so-called "USSR vs. Yugoslavia" match in 2007.[20][21] This match celebrated the USSR versus Yugoslavia matches that were held from the 1950s to the 1970s, in which Gligorić had represented the Yugoslav side 14 times.[22]

During his life Gligorić was very interested in art and culture, but his greatest passion besides chess was music. So in his eighties Gligorić turned to music even releasing an album in Belgrade consisting of 12 compositions mostly jazz, rap and blues.[23]

On 14 August 2012, Svetozar Gligorić died from a stroke at 89 years of age in Belgrade.[24][25] Gligorić was buried on 16 August 2012, at 13:30 in the Alley of the Greats at Belgrade's New Cemetery.[26][27]

Legacy

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Gligorić on a 2023 stamp of Serbia

Although he compiled a superb tournament record, it is perhaps as an openings theorist and commentator that Gligorić will be best remembered. He made enormous contributions to the theory and practice of the King's Indian Defence, Ruy Lopez and Nimzo-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 are named after him, including some critical and very commonly played opening variations like the Gligorić Variation of King's Indian (E92), the Ruy Lopez, Exchange, Gligorić Variation (C69), the Nimzo-Indian Gligorić System (E54) and the Ruy Lopez Closed Breyer, Gligorić Variation (C95). His battles with Bobby Fischer in the King's Indian and Sicilian Defence (particularly the Najdorf Variation, a long-time Fischer specialty) often worked out in his favour.

Gligoric also invented the famous Mar del Plata variation of the King's Indian Defence which he employed for the first time at the international tournament in Mar del Plata in 1953 against Najdorf[28] and two rounds later against Eliskases,[29] winning both games.[30]

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 for Chess Review and Chess 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 was Fischer vs. Spassky: The Chess Match of the Century, a detailed account of their epic struggle for the world title in Reykjavík in 1972. He also contributed regularly to the Chess Informant semi-annual (more recently, thrice-yearly) compilation of the world's most important chess games.

Gligorić on a 2020 stamp of Serbia

In 2019, FIDE established a fair play award named after Gligorić. The Fair Play Svetozar Gligoric Trophy is awarded annually by a three member commission in recognition of sportsmanship, integrity and the promotion ethical behavior within chess.[31]

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 and Milunka 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, grandmaster Aleksandar Matanović and sports journalist Miroslav Nešić.[32]

Quotes

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"The moment of death has the power to stress in a single move the achievement or the futility of a life."[33]

Notable games

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This section uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.
Petrosian vs. Gligorić, Zagreb 1970
hgfedcba
1
g1 white king
f1 white rook
d1 white queen
c1 white bishop
a1 white rook
h2 white pawn
f2 white pawn
d2 white knight
g3 white pawn
f3 white bishop
c3 white knight
f4 black knight
c4 white pawn
b4 white pawn
a4 white pawn
g5 black pawn
f5 black knight
e5 black pawn
d5 white pawn
d6 black pawn
h7 black pawn
g7 black bishop
c7 black pawn
b7 black pawn
a7 black pawn
g8 black king
f8 black rook
d8 black queen
c8 black bishop
a8 black rook
1
22
33
44
55
66
77
88
hgfedcba
Position after 14.g3

One of Gligorić's most famous games was this win against the former world champion Tigran Petrosian at the great "Tournament of Peace" held in Zagreb 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.

Petrosian vs. Gligorić, Zagreb 1970; King's Indian Defence, Classical Variation (ECO E97)
1.c4 g6 2.Nf3 Bg7 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 0-0 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Nh5 10.Nd2 Nf4 11.a4 f5 12.Bf3 g5 13.exf5 Nxf5 14.g3 (diagram) Nd4 15.gxf4 Nxf3+ 16.Qxf3 g4 17.Qh1 exf4 18.Bb2 Bf5 19.Rfe1 f3 20.Nde4 Qh4 21.h3 Be5 22.Re3 gxh3 23.Qxf3 Bg4 24.Qh1 h2+ 25.Kg2 Qh5 26.Nd2 Bd4 27.Qe1 Rae8 28.Nce4 Bxb2 29.Rg3 Be5 30.R1a3 Kh8 31.Kh1 Rg8 32.Qf1 Bxg3 33.Rxg3 Rxe4 0–1[34]

Indeed, Gligorić was the first person to inflict a defeat on Petrosian (at the First Piatigorsky Cup in 1963) after he won the world title from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963.[35]

Bibliography

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  • Selected Chess Masterpieces, Pitman, 1970. ISBN 978-0-273-40414-9
  • To all the FIDE Members and Central Committee, Belgrade 1978
  • Šahovski vodič. T. 1, Suština šaha, Belgrade 1988, ISBN 86-80001-02-3
  • Igram protiv figura, Belgrade 1989, ISBN 86-80001-04-X
  • Peti meč Kasparov–Karpov za titulu svetskog prvaka, Belgrade 1991, ISBN 86-80001-07-4
  • Gligina varijanta, Belgrade 2000
  • Fischer vs. Spassky – The Chess Match of the Century, Simon and Schuster, 1972, ISBN 978-0-671-21397-8
  • I Play Against Pieces, Batsford, 288 pages, 2002.
  • The Chess of Gligoric by David N. L. Levy, World Publishing, 192 pages, 1972.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "OlimpBase :: the encyclopaedia of team chess". www.olimpbase.org.
  2. ^ "OlimpBase :: 3rd European Team Chess Championship, Hamburg 1965, information". www.olimpbase.org.
  3. ^ "OlimpBase :: 4th European Team Chess Championship, Kapfenberg 1970, information". www.olimpbase.org.
  4. ^ "OlimpBase :: 5th European Team Chess Championship, Bath 1973, information". www.olimpbase.org.
  5. ^ "OlimpBase :: 7th European Team Chess Championship, Skara 1980, information". www.olimpbase.org.
  6. ^ "OlimpBase :: 8th European Team Chess Championship, Plovdiv 1983, information". www.olimpbase.org.
  7. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=1&tid=41710
  8. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79315
  9. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80179
  10. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80222
  11. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=43096
  12. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80210
  13. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=43111
  14. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80058
  15. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79445
  16. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/player/svetozar_gligoric.html
  17. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/
  18. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106609
  19. ^ https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197107e.html
  20. ^ McClain, Dylan Loeb (11 November 2007). "Blast From the Past". Gambit. New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
  21. ^ Kohlmeyer, Dagobert (2 February 2023). "Remembering Svetozar Gligoric: 2 February 1923 – 14 August 2012". ChessBase. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
  22. ^ Anatoly Karpov, ed. (1990). Шахматы. Энциклопедический Словарь [Chess. Encyclopedic Dictionary] (in Russian). Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya. pp. 380–381. ISBN 5-85270-005-3.
  23. ^ GM Kavalek, Lubomir Kavalek in Huffington: a chess legend turns to music
  24. ^ Loeb, Dylan. (2012-08-16) Svetozar Gligoric, Who Pioneered Chess Moves, Dies at 89. NY Times. Retrieved on 2012-11-10.
  25. ^ He played the pieces, not the man SVETOZAR GLIGORIC, 1923–2012 Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine. SMH. Retrieved on 2012-11-10.
  26. ^ Svetozar Gligorić: 2 February 1923 – 14 August 2012. Chessbase. Retrieved on 2012-11-10.
  27. ^ Svetozar Gligoric. The Telegraph (2012-08-15). Retrieved on 2012-11-10.
  28. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1101261
  29. ^ https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1041023
  30. ^ https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-titan-of-the-20th-century-part-three
  31. ^ "Svetozar Gligoric Award for fair play". FIDE. 20 February 2020. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  32. ^ https://sahmatlista.wordpress.com/2020/09/25/prof-dr-dragoslav-dukanovic-sahovski-velikani-srbije-nove-postanske-marke-srbije/
  33. ^ Gligorić, Svetozar (1972). The world chess championship. New York, Harper & Row. p. 1.
  34. ^ "Petrosian vs. Gligoric, Zagreb 1970". Chessgames.com.
  35. ^ "Gligoric vs. Petrosian, First Piatigorsky Cup 1963". Chessgames.com.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Svetozar Gligorić.
Awards
Preceded by Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Best Athlete of Yugoslavia
1958 		Succeeded by
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