Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

[Kerry Liles]

TWIC reports that Svetozar Gligoric has passed away...

2nd Feb 1923 - 14th Aug 2012. 3 time world championship Candidate.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Another true chess legend has passed away. One of the top of the world in the Fischer and Karpov era. Tournament director of the Tournament of Stars Montreal 1979. He played magnificent chess well into his 60's, often winning the strongest tournaments and capable of beating any of the best. RIP Grandmaster Gligoric.

[Frank Dixon]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric will be remembered as one of the greatest players in the history of chess. :) :)

He won more Yugoslav championships than any other player, and represented Yugoslavia at more Olympiads than any other player, usually very successfully.

He was a friend of GM Bobby Fischer, even through the tough times, as outlined in Frank Brady's biography "Endgame." The two played a secret training match as Fischer was getting ready to play GM Boris Spassky in their controversial 1992 match, which Fischer won. GM Gligoric himself had a solid record against Fischer, with three victories over the 1972-75 World Champion.

GM Gligoric was a great player for an exceptionally long time. He was a resistance fighter under Tito's forces, overcoming Nazi control and rival factions under Mikhailovic in the then-Yugoslavia in the 1940s. His chess came to prominence after the Second World War, and he was a threat to win tournaments of high class well into his 60s.

GM Gligoric was one of the great lions of the King's Indian Defence as Black, and his anti-KID system for White, with an early Be3 in the Classical setup, has proven a tough nut to crack since the 1960s.

One controversial episode did take away some of my admiration for him. This was the notorious Moscow 1984-85 World Championship match between GMs Karpov and Kasparov, with its very smelly conclusion, when the match was suddenly ended following game 48, after Kasparov had won two games in a row, cutting his deficit to 5-3. GM Gligoric was closely aligned with Florencio Campomanes, then FIDE President, for this event. However, it would have been difficult for anyone close to Campomanes to keep his own reputation intact, so let us not be too hard on him for this. I suspect there is much we do not yet know of this sordid story.

RIP, Grandmaster Gligoric. May you have much enjoyable chess in heaven! :) :)

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

"I play against pieces" was his chesslife's motto and the name of his greatest book. At 76 he was still beating young greatmasters!

[Hal Bond]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

If memory serves, he also Arbited the Spraggett - Yusopov Match in 89.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

If memory serves, he also Arbited the Spraggett - Yusopov Match in 89.

Hal, I really, really hope "arbite" is not a verb... :)
Sorry - my ears hurt when I read that.

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Hal, I really, really hope "arbite" is not a verb... :)
Sorry - my ears hurt when I read that.

LOL Kerry, and pronounced like a pirate : ARRR-bite :)

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

LOL Kerry, and pronounced like a pirate : ARRR-bite :)

Yes! I suppose it would be ok to use it, but only on "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (September 19)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...e_a_Pirate_Day

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric will be remembered as one of the greatest players in the history of chess. :) :)

He won more Yugoslav championships than any other player, and represented Yugoslavia at more Olympiads than any other player, usually very successfully.

He was a friend of GM Bobby Fischer, even through the tough times, as outlined in Frank Brady's biography "Endgame." The two played a secret training match as Fischer was getting ready to play GM Boris Spassky in their controversial 1992 match, which Fischer won. GM Gligoric himself had a solid record against Fischer, with three victories over the 1972-75 World Champion.

GM Gligoric was a great player for an exceptionally long time. He was a resistance fighter under Tito's forces, overcoming Nazi control and rival factions under Mikhailovic in the then-Yugoslavia in the 1940s. His chess came to prominence after the Second World War, and he was a threat to win tournaments of high class well into his 60s.

GM Gligoric was one of the great lions of the King's Indian Defence as Black, and his anti-KID system for White, with an early Be3 in the Classical setup, has proven a tough nut to crack since the 1960s.

One controversial episode did take away some of my admiration for him. This was the notorious Moscow 1984-85 World Championship match between GMs Karpov and Kasparov, with its very smelly conclusion, when the match was suddenly ended following game 48, after Kasparov had won two games in a row, cutting his deficit to 5-3. GM Gligoric was closely aligned with Florencio Campomanes, then FIDE President, for this event. However, it would have been difficult for anyone close to Campomanes to keep his own reputation intact, so let us not be too hard on him for this. I suspect there is much we do not yet know of this sordid story.

RIP, Grandmaster Gligoric. May you have much enjoyable chess in heaven! :) :)

I assume you mean Draza Mihailovic not Mikhailovic and the Royal Yugoslavian Army Chetniks that also resisted the Nazis and communism. While as a fellow Yugoslav I greatly admire Gligoric I do not admire his communist politics. You can admire him as a chessplayer without supporting his communist ideals. So Unless of course the FBI was right and every chess player like Fischer falls under the spell of communism through chess.

So for the great chess thanks Gligoric. For the wrong headed political ideals that lead to summary executions and imprisonment on Yugoslavia's version of Devil's Island post WW2 and that also ultimately put Yugoslavia under a dictatorship that ultimately lead to a bloody 3 way civil war yet again - no thanks, you were one of those that lead our country down the wrong path of disaster. His politics have long ago been discredited. It was Churchill's folly aided by British double agents turned communists that allowed the communists to take over.

Just the other day you were decrying Katerina Witt's apparent support of the East German communist secret police and now you are praising Gligoric for his help putting in place exactly that type of repressive regime. Perhaps you could make up your mind if communism and their secret police apparatus is good or bad.

[Fred McKim]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

If memory serves, he also Arbited the Spraggett - Yusopov Match in 89.

I don't know about that match, but he definitely was at the 1988 World Chess Festival as Chief Arbiter of the seven Candidates matches. He was our 1st choice and we were thrilled to land him.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Following your logic, all chess players from the East, starting with Botvinnik and ending with Karpov, were "one of those". Even more, from Capablanca to Timman, all Western players that ever played a tournament in USSR, or in any other country from the communist block, are guilty of supporting those political regimes, by agreeing to take part in competitions organized by executioners. OMG!

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Following your logic, all chess players from the East, starting with Botvinnik and ending with Karpov

You should not stop with Karpov. Kasparov supported Comunism when it benefited him.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

Following your logic, all chess players from the East, starting with Botvinnik and ending with Karpov, were "one of those". Even more, from Capablanca to Timman, all Western players that ever played a tournament in USSR, or in any other country from the communist block, are guilty of supporting those political regimes, by agreeing to take part in competitions organized by executioners. OMG!

Since you are obviously not familiar with what Frank was lauding about Gligoric let me clarify. Gligoric was a communist partisan under Tito and as such an ardent communist and active propagtor and lifelong supporter of a repressive communist dictatorship. A dictatorship that summarily executed or imprisoned thousands of its own when Tito decided to break with Stalin: not quite sure how you are then extrapolating my pointing that out about Gligoric in any logical way to all chess players from the East as you call it. Kortchnoi for one would be very unhappy with your suggestion.

[Ken Craft]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

A little bit on the Chetniks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Svetozar Gligoric - RIP

A little bit on the Chetniks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks

and something a little more balanced regarding their role of having returned more downed US and allied airmen to their own lines than any other force in WW2, hardly the stuff of collaborators http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wD1RK1G0gI

much of the collaboration talk was selfserving communist propoganda in their attempt to use WW2 for their own ends to take over Yugoslavia, not exactly the best time for it as overthrowing the Nazis should have been the only priority at the time, not taking power for themselves, this was part of their false rumor that the Yugoslav monarchy had decided to collaborate with Hitler

the Wiki article basically largely quotes three books by two authors, I would suggest these two authors are not definitive and being from 1975 hardly up to date even for history books

the Soviet Union was at least communist before WW2, unlike communists in Yugoslavia and Greece that used WW2 to try to take power for themselves

that was the problem with Churchill, he believed his own British agents who were actually double agents and he cynically decided to support the communists and withdraw support from the Royal Yugoslavian Army when false reports were sent about who was being most effective against the Nazis, despite Churchills own dislike of communist ideology

history has already judged Tito and his communists,there is not much point in belabouring the issue, anyone familiar with Yugoslav history knows of Titos crimes and corruption and it should be obvious to anyone that the end result of this was the most recent wars in Yugoslavia now former Yugoslavia