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Aleksandar Matanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Матановић; 23 May 1930 – 9 August 2023) was a Serbian chess grandmaster, one of the leading Yugoslav players in the 1950s-1970s. In 1966 he founded the company Chess Informant, which publishes regular game collections from recent master tournaments and the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings.
Aleksandar Matanović | |
|---|---|
 Matanović competing in 1961 | |
| Country | Serbia |
| Born | 23 May 1930 Belgrade, Yugoslavia |
| Died | 9 August 2023 (aged 93) Belgrade, Serbia[1] |
| Title | Grandmaster (1955) |
| Peak rating | 2525 (January 1976) |
Matanović was junior champion of Yugoslavia in 1948 and awarded the GM title in 1955. He was Yugoslav champion in 1962 (joint with Minić), 1969 and 1978 (he took second place in 1956, 1959 and 1967).[2][3][4][5][6][7]
His most successful tournament results included first place at Opatija 1953, second at Belgrade 1954, first at Hamburg 1955, first at Beverwijk 1957, tied for first at Buenos Aires 1961, first at Zevenaar 1961, second at Jerusalem 1964 and second place at the Vrnjacka Banja zonal tournament 1967. Matanović participated in four interzonal tournaments, his best result being a tie for seventh place in Portorož, Slovenia in 1958. In this tournament he was the only player to defeat the winner, future World Champion Mikhail Tal. Dutch grandmaster Hein Donner wrote: "Only Matanovic managed to hold his own against him. He fought him with his own weapons. The Yugoslav unleashed such concentrated violence that Tal caved in. It was one of the best and also one of the longest games of the tournament[8]."
Matanović defeated many other leading players, including Efim Bogoljubov, Savielly Tartakower, Svetozar Gligoric, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Bent Larsen, Lajos Portisch, Leonid Stein, Vlastimil Hort, Fridrik Olafsson, Lev Polugaevsky, Tigran Petrosian, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Ulf Andersson, Jan Timman and Borislav Ivkov[9].
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
Representing  Yugoslavia | ||
Men's chess  | ||
| Olympiad | ||
 | 1954 Amsterdam | Open team |
| 1954 Amsterdam | Individual board 2nd reserve[10] |
 | 1956 Moscow | Open team |
| 1956 Moscow | Individual board 2[11] |
| 1958 Munich | Open team |
| 1960 Leipzig | Open team |
| 1962 Varna | Open team |
| 1964 Tel Aviv | Open team |
| 1966 Havana | Individual board 4[12] |
| 1968 Lugano | Open team |
| 1970 Siegen | Open team |
 | 1970 Siegen | Individual board 4 |
| 1972 Skopje | Open team |
| European Championship[13] | ||
| 1957 Vienna | Open team |
| 1961 Oberhausen | Open team |
| 1965 Hamburg | Open team |
| 1973 Bath | Open team |
| 1977 Moscow | Open team |
| 1977 Moscow | Individual board 3[14] |
Matanovic represented Yugoslavia in 11 Chess Olympiads (1954-72, 1978) playing alongside some of the greatest players in the world such as GMs Svetozar Gligoric, Borislav Ivkov and Ljubomir Ljubojevic. This was during a golden age of Serbian chess, a period when Yugoslavia was usually among the top three chess countries. He won a total of nine team medals and four board medals during his career.[15]
- 1954 Amsterdam: board 2nd reserve, 6½/9 (+5 =3 −1), board bronze, team bronze
- Moscow 1956: board 2, 11½/16 (+7 =9 −0), board silver, team silver
- Munich 1958: board 2, 9½/13 (+7 =5 −1), team silver
- Leipzig 1960: board 2, 10½/17 (+6 =9 −2), team bronze
- Varna 1962: board 3, 8½/15 (+5 =7 −3), team silver
- Tel Aviv 1964: board 3, 9½/15 (+6 =7 −2), team silver
- Havana 1966: board 4, 10½ 14 (+7 =7 −0), board silver
- Lugano 1968: board 3, 9/13 (+5 =8 −0), team silver
- Siegen 1970: board 4, 10/12 (+8 =4 −0), board gold, team bronze
- Skopje 1972: board 4, 7/12 (+3 =8 −1), team bronze
- Buenos Aires 1978: board 3, 5/10 (+2 =6 −2)
Matanović made his first appearance at the European team level in the inaugural event at Vienna 1957, and was chosen on five further occasions. He won five team medals and one board medal in Euroteams events[16].
- Vienna 1957: board 2, 2½/6 (+0 =5 −1), team silver;
- Oberhausen 1961: board 3, 7/10 (+4 =6 −0), team silver;
- Hamburg 1965: board 3, 5½/10 (+3 =5 −2), team silver;
- Bath 1973: board 4, 4/7 (+1 =6 −0), team silver;
- Moscow 1977: board 3, 3/6 (+1 =4 −1), board silver, team bronze;
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Despite a distinguished chess career during which he was also a radio announcer and producer, Matanovic's most important achievement will always be the leading pre-digital chess publication of which he was a co-founder and its driving force. In 1966, together with Milivoje Molerovic, Matanovic founded the company Chess Informant (Шаховски Информатор in Serbian) and started publishing books with the same name twice a year. In a time without the internet, chess databases or engines, Informant provided access to large collections of recent top-level games to all chess players from both sides of the Iron Curtain. The bulk of the content consists of diagrams of positions and chess moves, annotated with symbols, many of them developed by Chess Informant. In that way Chess Informant pioneered the use of Figurine Algebraic Notation to avoid the use of initials for the names of the pieces, which vary between languages. The Chess Informant system of codes for the classification of chess openings, and its system of symbols have set the international standard for organizing chess information and communicating this information across language barriers. For two decades prior to the emergence of computer databases, Chess Informant publications were a leading source of games and analysis for serious chess players so much so that many professionals would carry more Informants than clothes in their luggage[17].
Former world champion Garry Kasparov asserted, "We are all children of Informant"[18] and then explained that his own development as a chess player corresponded with the ascent of Chess Informant's popularity. Chess Informant was considered the chess bible by Bobby Fischer who pored over each issue, studying all the games - as shown in the famous "Bobby The Champ" photograph, taken in Reykjavik 1972[19]. Other world champions, including Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, and Viswanathan Anand, attest that Informant is central to their tournament preparation.
As the number of chess tournaments grew, so did the number of editions of the Informant. Two issues per year were published from 1966 to 1990, three issues from 1991 to 2011 and four issues since 2012[20]. From millions of games played at some of the most important tournaments at the globe, more than 110,000 games have been published in first 112 volumes of Chess Informant series (1966–2011). Among contributors there were more than 500 notable chess players including all the world champions from Max Euwe to Anand[21].
About the enormous influence Chess Informant had on chess, Matanovic said: "[L]ittle did we know that we were trailblazing a path towards an era yet to come—the information era[22]."
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Aleksandar Matanović participated in the memorial tournament held in Moscow in 2007 to commemorate the great chess rivalry between the USSR and Yugoslavia. He drew his two games with GM Mark Taimanov which were the last two official matches of his career. The "USSR" team also had GMs Viktor Korchnoi, Yuri Averbakh, Evgeni Vasiukov and Yuri Balashov while GMs Svetozar Gligoric, Borislav Ivkov, Dragoljub Velimirovic and Nikola Karaklajic were Matanovic's teammates for "Yugoslavia". The final score was 11-9 for the USSR[23].
In February 2023, Matanovic attended a chess ceremony held in Belgrade in honor of Gligoric's 100th birthday anniversary. He spoke about his 64-year-long friendship with Gligoric, from the early days of youth competitions to chess Olympiads, matches and tournaments: "We were opponents on the chessboard, friends for 64 years. These 64 black and white squares brought us together and decided both his and my life path[24][25]."
Following the death of Yuri Averbakh at the age of 100 on 7 May 2022, Matanović became the oldest living grandmaster.[26]
Aleksandar Matanović died on 9 August 2023, at the age of 93.[27][28]
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- Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (five volumes), Chess Informant
- Encyclopaedia of Chess Endings (five volumes), Chess Informant
- Chess as a Destiny
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