Milan Matulovic
Encyclopedia
Milan Matulović is a chess
Grandmaster
who was the second or third strongest Yugoslav
player for much of the 1960s and 1970s behind Svetozar Gligorić
and possibly Borislav Ivkov
. He was primarily active before 1977, but has remained an occasional tournament competitor as recently as 2006.
. In 1958 he played a four-game training match with Bobby Fischer
, of which only one game (a Matulović win) has survived. He achieved the International Master title in 1961 and became a Grandmaster in 1965.
He won the Yugoslav Chess Championship
s of 1965 and 1967 and was a prolific competitor on the international tournament scene, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Probably his best result was equal first with Gligorić, Ivkov and Lev Polugaevsky
at Skopje
1969 ahead of former World Chess Champion
Mikhail Botvinnik
and multiple Candidate Efim Geller
. Other first place finishes during this period, either shared or outright, included Netanya
1961, Vršac
1964, Novi Sad
1965, Belgrade
1965, Reggio Emilia
1967/68, Athens
Zonal 1969, Belgrade 1969, Sarajevo
1971, Birmingham
1975, Bajmok
1975 (and in 1978), Majdanpek
1976, Vrbas
1976, Belgrade 1977 and Odzaci
1978. By the 1980s and beyond, his tournament victories had become less frequent, but included Osijek
1980, Borovo
1980, Helsinki
1981 and Vrnjacka Banja
1985. He repeated his Vrnjacka Banja success in 1990.
He also had excellent results in the Chess Olympiad
s. He played seventy-eight games in six events for Yugoslavia, with the overall result of forty-six won, twenty-eight drawn
and only four lost, with a 76.9 percent score, the tenth all-time best olympic performance.
His pursuit of the world championship was rather less successful, as he never advanced to the Candidates stage of the process for selecting a challenger for the title. He played in the celebrated 1970 "USSR versus Rest of the World
" match on eighth board against Botvinnik, losing one game and drawing the other three. A certain controversy attended this pairing, as Matulović was well known for his "Botvinnik complex" and a long history of poor results against the Soviet player; there were accusations that the Soviet team captain had placed Botvinnik on a lower board than his stature would warrant in order to take advantage of this.
(suspension of a game for resumption the next day, common in tournament play at the time) so that the news reports would read "Matulović's game is adjourned" rather than "Matulović lost!"
More seriously, in the aftermath of the 1970 Interzonal
tournament at Palma de Mallorca
, he was accused of "throwing" his game against Mark Taimanov
in return for a $400 bribe, thus allowing Taimanov to advance to the Candidates matches, where he was famously defeated by Bobby Fischer
6–0. The accusations centered on Matulović's conduct during the game and the alleged feebleness of his resistance. The score of the notorious Taimanov–Matulović game follows, from which the reader can draw his or her own conclusions:
Perhaps Matulović's most notorious transgression was against István Bilek
at the Sousse Interzonal
in 1967. He played a losing move but then took it back after saying "j'adoube" ("I adjust" - spoken before adjusting pieces on their square, see touch-move rule). His opponent complained to the arbiter but the move was allowed to stand. This incident earned Matulović the nickname "J'adoubovic". This reportedly happened several times, including in a game against Bobby Fischer
.
Matulović was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and served nine months in prison for a car accident in which a woman was killed.
n grandmaster Georgi Tringov
from the 1970 Chess Olympiad
at Siegen
.
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
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
who was the second or third strongest Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
player for much of the 1960s and 1970s behind Svetozar Gligorić
Svetozar Gligoric
Svetozar Gligorić is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia...
and possibly Borislav Ivkov
Borislav Ivkov
Borislav Ivkov is a Serbian chess Grandmaster. He was the first ever World Junior Champion in 1951. He won the Yugoslav Championship in 1958 , 1963 and 1972. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments, in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979...
. He was primarily active before 1977, but has remained an occasional tournament competitor as recently as 2006.
Career
Matulović was born in BelgradeBelgrade
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...
. In 1958 he played a four-game training match with Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
, of which only one game (a Matulović win) has survived. He achieved the International Master title in 1961 and became a Grandmaster in 1965.
He won the Yugoslav Chess Championship
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....
s of 1965 and 1967 and was a prolific competitor on the international tournament scene, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Probably his best result was equal first with Gligorić, Ivkov and Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was an International Grandmaster of chess and frequent contender for the world chess championship, although he never achieved that title...
at Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
1969 ahead of former World Chess Champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
and multiple Candidate Efim Geller
Efim Geller
Efim Petrovich Geller was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions...
. Other first place finishes during this period, either shared or outright, included Netanya
Netanya
Netanya is a city in the Northern Centre District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate Institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.Its of beaches have made the...
1961, 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...
1964, Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
1965, 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...
1965, Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....
1967/68, Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
Zonal 1969, Belgrade 1969, Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
1971, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
1975, Bajmok
Bajmok
Bajmok is a village located in the Subotica municipality, in the North Bačka District of Serbia. It is situated in the autonomous province of Vojvodina...
1975 (and in 1978), Majdanpek
Majdanpek
Majdanpek is a town and municipality in Bor District of Serbia. According to 2011 census, the municipality of Majdanpek has a population of 18,179 people, while the town of Majdanpek has a population of 7,367....
1976, Vrbas
Vrbas
Vrbas may refer to:* Vrbas , river in Bosnia and Herzegovina* Vrbas , town and municipality in Vojvodina, Serbia* Vrbas , village in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
1976, Belgrade 1977 and Odzaci
Odžaci
Odžaci is a town and municipality in the West Bačka District of Serbia. It is situated in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The town of Odžaci has a population of 9,832 people, while the population of the municipality of Odžaci is 35,474 people .-Name:The name Odžaci means "chimneys" in Serbian...
1978. By the 1980s and beyond, his tournament victories had become less frequent, but included Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
1980, Borovo
Borovo
Borovo refers to:* Borovo, Bulgaria, a town and municipality in Bulgaria* Borovo, Croatia, a village and municipality in Croatia* Borovo Naselje, part of the city of Vukovar, Croatia,* Borovo, Republic of Macedonia, a village in Kriva Palanka municipality...
1980, Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
1981 and Vrnjacka Banja
Vrnjacka Banja
Vrnjačka Banja is a town, municipality, and a resort, mineral spa located in Raška District of Serbia. It contains the world's only hot spring with a temperature measuring exactly that of the human body ....
1985. He repeated his Vrnjacka Banja success in 1990.
He also had excellent results in the Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
s. He played seventy-eight games in six events for Yugoslavia, with the overall result of forty-six won, twenty-eight drawn
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,...
and only four lost, with a 76.9 percent score, the tenth all-time best olympic performance.
His pursuit of the world championship was rather less successful, as he never advanced to the Candidates stage of the process for selecting a challenger for the title. He played in the celebrated 1970 "USSR versus Rest of the World
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
There have been two chess matches featuring USSR vs. Rest of the World and 1 match Russia vs. Rest of the World. The first two matches were between a team from the USSR and a team of players from the "rest of the world"...
" match on eighth board against Botvinnik, losing one game and drawing the other three. A certain controversy attended this pairing, as Matulović was well known for his "Botvinnik complex" and a long history of poor results against the Soviet player; there were accusations that the Soviet team captain had placed Botvinnik on a lower board than his stature would warrant in order to take advantage of this.
Controversies
Controversy in actions both over and away from the board was nothing new to Matulović. Over the board he was known for playing out hopeless positions long after grandmaster etiquette called for a resignation, allegedly in the hopes of reaching adjournmentAdjournment (games)
Some boardgames, such as chess or Go, use an adjournment mechanism to suspend the game in progress so it can be continued at another time, typically the following day. The rationale is that games often extend in duration beyond what is reasonable for a single session of play...
(suspension of a game for resumption the next day, common in tournament play at the time) so that the news reports would read "Matulović's game is adjourned" rather than "Matulović lost!"
More seriously, in the aftermath of the 1970 Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournament at Palma de Mallorca
Palma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
, he was accused of "throwing" his game against Mark Taimanov
Mark Taimanov
Mark Evgenievich Taimanov is a leading Soviet and Russian chess player and concert pianist.-Chess:He was awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1952 and played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. From 1946 to 1956, he was among the world's top...
in return for a $400 bribe, thus allowing Taimanov to advance to the Candidates matches, where he was famously defeated by Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
6–0. The accusations centered on Matulović's conduct during the game and the alleged feebleness of his resistance. The score of the notorious Taimanov–Matulović game follows, from which the reader can draw his or her own conclusions:
Taimanov–Matulović, Queen's Gambit AcceptedQueen's Gambit AcceptedThe Queen's Gambit Accepted is a chess opening characterised by the moves:The Queen's Gambit is not considered a true gambit, in contradistinction to the King's Gambit, because the pawn is either regained, or can only be held unprofitably by Black...
: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.Nc3 Nbd7 7.h3 Bh5 8.0-0 Bd6 9.e4 e5 10.dxe5 Nxe5 11.Be2 Bxf3 12.Bxf3 Nxf3+ 13.Qxf3 Qe7 14.Bf4 Be5 15.Bxe5 Qxe5 16.Qe3 0-0 17.f4 Qe7 18.e5 c6 19.Rfe1 Rfe8 20.Qf3 Qc5+ 21.Qf2 Qxf2+ 22.Kxf2 Nd5 23.Nxd5 cxd5 24.Red1 Red8 25.Rac1 Rd7 26.Ke3 Rad8 27.Kd4 Kf8 28.f5 Ke7 29.Rd3 Re8 30.Rdc3 b6 31.Rc7 Rd8 32.R1c6 Ke8 33.g4 h6 34.h4 Rb8 35.g5 hxg5 36.hxg5 Rb7 37.Rc8+ Rd8 38.Rxd8+ Kxd8 39.Kxd5 a5 40.Rd6+ Ke8 41.Kc6 Re7 42.Rd5 1–0
Perhaps Matulović's most notorious transgression was against István Bilek
Istvan Bilek
István Bilek was a Hungarian chess Grandmaster .-Biography:Bilek was a three-time Hungarian Champion , and he played in interzonals in 1962 and 1964. His most successful tournaments were Balatonfüred , Salgótarján , and Debrecen...
at the Sousse Interzonal
World Chess Championship 1969
The 1969 World Chess Championship was played between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky in Moscow from April 14 to June 17, 1969. Spassky won.-Qualification:...
in 1967. He played a losing move but then took it back after saying "j'adoube" ("I adjust" - spoken before adjusting pieces on their square, see touch-move rule). His opponent complained to the arbiter but the move was allowed to stand. This incident earned Matulović the nickname "J'adoubovic". This reportedly happened several times, including in a game against Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
.
Matulović was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and served nine months in prison for a car accident in which a woman was killed.
Illustrative game
Matulović's sharp attacking play is shown in a more favorable light in this game against the BulgariaBulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n grandmaster Georgi Tringov
Georgi Tringov
Georgi Petrov Tringov was a Grandmaster of chess from Bulgaria. He won the Bulgarian national chess championship in 1963, the year he was awarded the Grandmaster title, only the second Bulgarian player thus honored...
from the 1970 Chess Olympiad
19th Chess Olympiad
The 19th Chess Olympiad, comprising an open team tournament and the Annual Congress of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, took place between September 5 and September 27, 1970, in the small town of Siegen, West Germany.-Tournament report:...
at Siegen
Siegen
Siegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region...
.
Matulović–Tringov, Pirc DefensePirc DefenceThe Pirc Defence |grandmasters]]), sometimes known as the Ufimtsev Defence or Yugoslav Defence, is a chess opening characterised by Black responding to 1.e4 with 1...d6 and 2...Nf6, followed by ...g6 and ...Bg7, while allowing White to establish an impressive-looking centre with pawns on d4 and e4...
: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.fxe5 dxe5 9.d5 c6 10.dxc6 bxc6 11.Kh1 Qc7 12.Be3 Nb6 13.a4 a5 14.Qe1 Nfd7 15.Rd1 Qd8 16.Qf2 Rb8 17.Nd2 Qe7 18.b3 Kh8 19.Ne2 f6 20.Ng3 h5 21.Nc4 Nxc4 22.Bxc4 Rb4 23.Rd3 Re8 24.Rfd1 Rb8 25.Nf5 gxf5 26.Qh4 Nf8 27.Qxh5+ Nh7 28.Bc5 Qxc5 29.Rh3 Bh6 30.Qxe8+ Qf8 31.Rd8 fxe4 32.Qxf8+ Bxf8 33.Rxf8+ Kg7 34.Rg8#