Diocletian: I knew Dr. Vukcevich in the late sixties and early seventies in Cleveland where I was a student and he was a professor at Case Western Reserve University. I often encountered him on the campus or at the Cleveland Chess Club on the smoky fourth floor of the Masonic Temple near East 36th and Euclid. In appearance Dr. Vukcevich was tall and dark with a head of thick black hair like Spassky's and the handsome looks of a movie star. He was in every way a first class gentleman with a rare personal elegance and always with time to share with any chess lover, even an average club player like me. He was extremely well liked by all at the chess club and the university where he taught metallurgy and published a weekly chess column in the campus paper. He cheered Fischer on during his rise and triumph, and this period of Fischer inspired chess madness was a great time to know a great player like Vukcevich. He was as accomplished in metallurgy as he was in chess, but was sometimes frustrated that his academic work prevented him from travel to the chess Olympiads and other great events in which he was invited to play against the world's best. I was much saddened a few years ago to learn of his early passing, and I write this comment in admiration of him and to make my own small contribution in honor of his memory and his games.
I played only one game against Vukcevich. It was a Winawer French in a simultaneous exhibition he gave against about thirty-some better than average opponents at the Cleveland Heights Chess Club in about late '71 or early '72. In those days I liked the inferior 5 B-R4 retreat variation of the Winawer which I was determined to somehow bolster for practical play.
Vukcevich beat me of course, as he did everyone, I think, except for one of his chess students, C.B., who obtained a win or draw ( I forget now). Vukcevich was an outstanding gentleman as usual in this contest, allowing me to pass on my move twice as he did several others. Such confidence and sportsmanship he displayed, as was typical for him!
I knew the line of the Winawer that Vukcevich likely would play because I had "inside information" from his student whom I also knew casually in local chess circles, and I was lucky that I was able to lead him into this familiar line which I had studied extensively beforehand.
Vukcevich moved along the inner perimeter of tables arranged in a large square making his initial moves: four games with P-K4 followed by four games opening with P-Q4, and then alternating between these two moves every four tables. Of course I never imagined that I could beat him, but I knew that I was ready to give him a hard fight if only I could lure him into his own favorite line of the French.
I watched him across the square playing his P-K4 and P-Q4 moves and trying to anticipate the opening he would use when he came to my table. With P-Q4 he would probably beat me much more quickly, and I would not be able to show off my "deep opening knowledge" which was pretty much restricted to this single line - Vukcevich's favorite!
As fortune would have it, he played P-K4 at my board and I got to play the Winawer I had hoped for. I couldn't beat him, but I'm proud to say that I scared him! I surprised him with an exchange sacrifice for compensation in the form of a mass of pawns that crossed to his side of the board with knives in their teeth and two commanding bishops right behind them. On two or three moves he was forced to pause for several seconds, resting on hands placed palm down on both sides of the board and leaning forward over the board and glowering darkly for several seconds as he plotted how to stop my attack. I was very proud to slow him down a bit in his race around the exhibition square!
I have analyzed this game to death with Rebel Decade, and perhaps I'll add some annotation and a diagram later; for now I'll just try to accurately copy the moves from my old score sheet. Here is the game (next comment):
