Borislav Kostic
Encyclopedia
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
professional chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
grandmaster from Vršac
Vršac
Vršac is a town and municipality located in Serbia. In 2002 the town's total population was 36,623, while Vršac municipality had 54,369 inhabitants. Vršac is located in the Banat region, in the Vojvodina province of Serbia. It is part of the South Banat District.-Name:The name Vršac is of Serbian...
(Hungarian: Versecz; German: Werschetz), then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
).
He learned the game around the age of ten and made rapid progress while studying Oriental Trade in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. He also spent time in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, the chess capital of the day, and this enabled him to get the high level practice necessary to take his game to the next level.
In 1910 he moved to Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and from there, travelled and toured extensively, mainly in the Americas, playing matches against local champions and exhibiting his legendary skills as a player of simultaneous
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
blindfold chess
Blindfold chess
Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces...
. At New York in 1916, he once played twenty opponents without sight of a board and won nineteen games and drew
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
one, while engaging in polite conversation with opponents and spectators.
Kostic played more formal matches against Frank Marshall, Jackson Showalter
Jackson Showalter
Jackson Whipps Showalter was a five-time U.S. Chess Champion: 1890, 1892, 1892–1894, 1895-1896 and 1906–1909.-Chess career:...
, and Paul Leonhardt
Paul Leonhardt
Paul Saladin Leonhardt was a German chess master.He was born in Posen, Province of Posen, Poland , and died of a heart attack in Königsberg during a game of chess....
, and won them all. At Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
in 1919 however, this impressive winning streak came to an abrupt end with a 5–0 loss to Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
. Capablanca wrote that his own career peaked with this match. Kostic also played tournaments while in the United States, including New York 1916, Chicago 1918 and New York 1918, where he finished second behind Capablanca.
On the European circuit, he won at Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
1913, finished second at Hastings 1919 and won at Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1921/1922. At Trencianske Teplice
Trencianske Teplice
Trenčianske Teplice is a health resort and small spa town in western Slovakia, in the valley of the river Teplička, at the foothills of the Strážovské vrchy mountains.-Characteristics:...
1928, he won ahead of Szabo
László Szabó (chess player)
László Szabó was a prominent Hungarian Grandmaster of chess.Born in Budapest, he burst onto the international chess scene in 1935, at the unusually young age of 18...
and Tartakower
Savielly Tartakower
Ksawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s...
. At Bled
Bled
Bled is a municipality in northwestern Slovenia in the region of Upper Carniola. The area, within the Julian Alps, is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
1931, he finished in tenth place, but nevertheless outscored such luminaries as Maróczy
Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practicing engineer.-Early career:...
, Colle
Edgard Colle
Edgard Colle was a Belgian chess master. He scored excellent results in major international tournaments, including first at Amsterdam 1926, ahead of Savielly Tartakower and future world champion Max Euwe; first at Meran 1926, ahead of Esteban Canal; and first at Scarborough 1930, ahead of Maróczy...
and Pirc
Vasja Pirc
Vasja Pirc was a leading Slovenian chess player. His name is most familiar to contemporary players as the originator of the hypermodern Pirc Defense...
- the tournament was, at the time, regarded as one of the strongest in history. At Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
1932, he won the title of Romanian champion
Romanian Chess Championship
The Romanian Chess Championship became a yearly even in 1946, and was held irregularly earlier. A series of national eliminating contests are played to select a 20-player field for the men's final...
. At Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
1935, he shared the title of Yugoslav champion
Yugoslav Chess Championship
The Yugoslav Chess Championship is a tournament with great tradition, held to determine the national champion. It was a very strong event especially in the period 1945–1991, when it represented players from six federal republics, today independent countries....
with Pirc, and went on to become sole champion in 1938. He was a clear winner at Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
the same year.
From 1923–26, Kostic travelled all over the world, including Australasia, the Far East, Africa, India, and Siberia, demonstrating his exceptional skills, generating interest in chess and forging new links with people across the globe. He was undoubtedly a brilliant publicist and ambassador for the game, although this probably prevented him from realizing his full potential as a player.
In the late 1920s, he made a return trip to the Americas. He represented Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
in four Chess Olympiads (London 1927
1st Chess Olympiad
The 1st Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 18 and July 30, 1927, in London, United Kingdom...
, Prague 1931
4th Chess Olympiad
The 4th Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 11 and July 26, 1931, in Prague, Czechoslovakia...
, Warsaw 1935
6th Chess Olympiad
The 6th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between August 16 and August 31, 1935, in Warsaw, Poland...
, and Stockholm 1937
7th Chess Olympiad
The 7th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 31 and August 14, 1937, in Stockholm, Sweden]....
), and in the 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad
3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad
The 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad was held by German Chess Federation as a counterpart of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with reference to 1924 and 1928 events....
at Munich 1936.
During World War II, Kostić (Orthodox Christian) was imprisoned in a concentration camp by a Nazi SS commander Schiller because he declined to participate in tournaments called "Free Europa" and to glorify the Nazi regime. Afterwards, he played chess only in a more minor capacity. His final appearance was at the Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
veterans tournament of 1962, which he won. Kostic was awarded the Grandmaster title by FIDE in 1950, on its inaugural list. He died in Belgrade in 1963, aged 76.
External links
- Profile from the Chess section at Vrsac.com
- Statistics at ChessWorld.net
- http://www.rogerpaige.me.uk/index.htm
- http://www.olimpbase.org