For a couple of decades decades ‘Ljubo’ was the most successful player of Yugoslavia, one of the strongest and most popular chess countries in the world.

His comet-like rise started after he had finished second in the 1970 European Junior Championship and was invited to play in a grandmaster tournament in Sarajevo. Ljubojevic won that tournament and already the next year he earned the grandmaster title.

In the years that followed he kept winning tournaments and in the 1983 world rankings he was in third place behind Karpov and Kasparov. It is hard to say which were his best tournament achievements, but some (not mentioned in the above Bio) stand out:

--- shared first places (and the fascinating neck-and-neck races) with Kasparov in Brussels in 1987 and in Barcelona in 1989.

--- Linares, 1985.

--- 11 out of 14 super-score on first board at the 1982 Olympiad in Lucerne.

--- Las Palmas in 1974 and ’75.

--- Manila, 1975.

--- Wijk aan Zee, 1976.

--- Buenos Aires 1980 and ’81,

--- Belgrade, 1987.

--- Reggio Emilia, 1991.

When I used Ljubojevic as a "subject",there was a lot of chess books listed where his name is mentioned and games annotated. But, that is a different matter.

Sorry, I see now that Ljubo only wrote foreword in this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=pd_rh...

From history to the present:

Ljubomir Ljubojevic is the winner of the Corus Chess Honorary Group 2008 (ahead of shared Korchnoi / Timman, and finally Portisch).

It was mandatory for all males to serve, after the age of 18, and not later than 28. There were exceptions (many) usually based on health issues, or on good connections. Ljubojevic, like many other well known young man, could have easily avoided the Army if he had wanted to.

He stayed in the Zagreb garrison, spending most of his time in Zagreb chess clubs, where I met him and even played a few Blitz games with him. Also, during that time he participated, and shared the first place, in the national championship of 1977which took place in Zagreb.

1976-77 was also a matter of good timing, with the idea to have plenty of time to prepare for the next WC cycle. Although Ljubo never qualified for the Candidates, he still remained amongst the top ten throughout most of the 1980s.

Regardless of some minor differences in accent and idioms, Croatian and Serbian are essentially the same language.

<..in 1979 he played in Sao Paulo the IT..> By "IT" are You referring to the Interzonal? I'm sure in 1979 Ljubojevic played in the Riga Itz, which was, perhaps the worst showing of his career.