Vasja Pirc was a leading Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

n 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...

 player. His name is most familiar to contemporary players as the originator of the hypermodern

Hypermodernism (chess)

Hypermodernism is a school of chess that emerged after World War I. It featured challenges on the chess ideologies presented by central European masters, such as on Wilhelm Steinitz’ approach to the centre. It also challenged in particular the dogmatic rules set down by Siegbert Tarrasch...

 Pirc Defense. He was champion of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

 five times: 1935, 1936, 1937, 1951, and 1953.

Pirc was born in Idrija

Idrija

Idrija is a small town and municipality in the Goriška region of Slovenia. It is known for its mercury mine and lace....

, then a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and died in 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...

.
He was awarded the International Master (IM) title in 1950, earned the Grandmaster title in 1953, and was made an International Arbiter

International Arbiter

In chess, International Arbiter is a title awarded by FIDE to individuals deemed capable of acting as arbiter in important chess matches . The title was established in 1951....

 in 1973.

Although Pirc had a minus record against Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

, he beat Alekhine with the black pieces (although not under normal time controls - it was a blitz

Blitz chess

Fast chess, also known as blitz chess, lightning chess, sudden death, speed chess, bullet chess and rapid chess, is a type of chess game in which each side is given less time to make their moves than under the normal tournament time controls of 60 to 180 minutes per player.-Overview:The different...

 game) in 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...

in 1930:

1. d4 e6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Bd2 b6 5. f3 Bxc3 6. Bxc3 d5 7. e3 O-O 8. Bd3 c5 9. Ne2 Nc6 10. O-O Bb7 11. Qa4 Qd7 12. Qc2 Nb4 13. Bxb4 cxb4 14. b3 Rac8 15. e4 h6 16. e5 dxc4 17. bxc4 Nd5 18. Qd2 Nc3 19. Rae1 Rfd8 20. d5 exd5 21. c5 Rxc5 22. Nd4 Bc8 23. e6 Qc7 24. exf7+ Kxf7 25. f4 Ne4 26. Qb2 Rc3 27. Nf3 Kg8 28. Ne5 Qc5+ 29. Kh1 Qd4 30. Qe2 Bf5 31. g4 Ng3+ 32. hxg3 Bxd3 33. Nxd3 Rxd3 34. Rd1 Qe4+ 35. Qg2 Rc8 36. Rxd3 Qxd3 37. Rf2 Rc1+ 38. Kh2 a5 39. Rd2 Qe4 40. Qxe4 dxe4 41. Kg2 a4 42. Rd4 Rc2+ 43. Kf1 Rxa2 44. Rxb4 e3 45. Rxb6 e2+ 46. Kf2 a3 47. Ra6 Ra1 48. Kxe2 a2 0-1

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