Tactics Time Chess Newsletter: Svetozar Gligorić Tribute

Published: Tue, 08/21/12

Newsletter Issue Svetozar Gligorić Tribute

Tactics Time

Svetozar Gligorić

I play against pieces ~ Svetozar Gligorić


T

his game was game was played by Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić who passed away last week on August 14, 2012 at the age of 89.

In the position on the right it is White to move.

Answer below.

Geoff Chandler wrote a nice tribute to Gligorić on his Redhotpawn. com blog, which you can read here: http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogread.php?blogpostid=112. He annotated a game, and included several tactics puzzles from Gligorić's games, including this one.

From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetozar_Gligori%C4%87

Svetozar Gligorić (Serbian: Светозар Глигорић, 2 February 1923 - 14 August 2012) was a Serbian and Yugoslavian chess grandmaster.

He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia. In 1958 he was declared the best athlete of Yugoslavia.

In the 1950s and 1960s Gligorić was one of the top ten players in the world, and also among the world's most popular, 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., playing without hostility toward the opponent, or playing differently against different players for "psychological" reasons; playing the board and not the man.)

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 Defense, Ruy Lopez and Nimzo-Indian Defense, among others, and particularly with the King's Indian, translated his theoretical contributions into several spectacular victories with both colours (including the sample game below).

Theoretically significant variations in the King's Indian and Ruy Lopez are named for him.

His battles with Bobby Fischer in the King's Indian and Sicilian Defense (particularly the Najdorf Variation, a long-time Fischer specialty) often worked out in his favor.

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 and has contributed regularly to the Chess Informant semi-annually (more recently, thrice-yearly) compilation of the world's most important chess games.

Here is the complete game:

[Event "Buesum"]
[Site "Buesum"]
[Date "1969.??.??"]
[Round "15"]
[White "Gligoric, Svetozar"]
[Black "Gerusel, Mathias"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D18"]
[PlyCount "63"]
[EventDate "1969.05.01"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "15"]
[EventCountry "GER"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "1997.11.17"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. O-O
Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 Bxc3 11. bxc3 Nxe4 12. Ba3 Qc7 13. Qe3 Nb6 14. Bb3 Nc8
15. Rfe1 Ned6 16. Qf4 O-O 17. Ne5 Re8 18. Re3 Qb6 19. Ba2 Nf5 20. Rf3 Nce7 21.
g4 Nh6 22. Nc4 Qa6 23. Nd6 Qxa4 24. c4 Reb8 25. Qg5 f6 26. Qe3 e5 27. h3 Nc8
28. c5+ Kh8 29. dxe5 Nxd6 30. cxd6 fxe5 31. Qxe5 Re8 32. Qxg7+ 1-0

You can play through this game here: http://tacticstime.com/gligoric-vs-gerusel/

Answer:

White has a beautiful mate with 32.Qxg7+! Kxg7 33.Bb2+ Qd4 34.Bxd4+ Re5 35.Bxe5#

Rest in Peace GM Gligorić.

Your Friend,