Borislav Ivkov was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He was awarded the Yugoslav National Master title in 1949, the IM title in 1954 and the GM title in 1955.

Tournaments: Ivkov won the Yugoslav Championship in 1958 (jointly with Svetozar Gligoric) with 12.5/19, 1963 (jointly with Mijo Udovcic) with 15/21, finally as sole winner in 1972 with 12/19.

His tournament wins include Mar del Plata 1955 with 11.5/15, ahead of Miguel Najdorf, Gligoric, Laszlo Szabo, Ludek Pachman, Oscar Panno and Herman Pilnik and Buenos Aires 1955 with 13/17, ahead of Gligoric, Pilnik, Szabó, Arthur Bisguier, Pachman, Hector Rossetto, Panno and Jan Hein Donner, which was also the year he won his GM title. Other tournament wins and near wins include Sarajevo 1958 with 7/11, Belgrade 1959 by 2.5 points with 9/11, =1st Lima 1959 with Pachman on 10.5/13, =1st at Santiago 1959 with Pachman, =1st at Beverwijk 1961 with Bent Larsen on 7.5/9; =2nd at Belgrade 1964; =1st at Zagreb 1965 with Wolfgang Uhlmann on 13.5/19, ahead of then World Champion Tigran V Petrosian, Lajos Portisch, Larsen, and David Bronstein, 2nd at Havana in 1965, Venice 1966 with 5/7, Eersel 1966 with 4/5, the 1966 Open Canadian Chess Championship, =1st at Sarajevo 1967 on 10.5/15 with Leonid Stein, =1st at Málaga 1968 with Drazen Marovic on 7.5/11, Stockholm 1970 with 6.5/9, =2nd at Wijk aan Zee 1971 behind Viktor Korchnoi, =1st at Amsterdam 1974 on 10/15 with Vlastimil Jansa and Vladimir Tukmakov, 2nd at Štip 1977 with 8.5/13, behind Vlastimil Hort, Cienfuegos 1985 with 10/13, =1st with Portisch at the Tigran Petrosian Memorial at Moscow 1999 with 5/9. He won the European Senior Championship in 2006 and came =3rd in the same event in 2008.

He played successfully in the 2007 Canadian Open in Ottawa scoring 6/10 and in the 2008 Canadian Open in 2008 with 5/9. Other recent participation in competitions was in the Belgrade Premier Leagues in October 2008 when he scored 4 points in 5 rounds (+3 =2 -0), in October 2010 (2.5/4) and October 2011 (1/1), the last when he was nearly 78.

Team events: The quintessential team player, Ivkov first represented Yugoslavia at the Student Olympiad in 1956 when he helped the team win bronze. Subsequently he represented his country 12 times in open Olympic competition between 1956 and 1980, winning 15 medals (6 team silvers, 4 team bronzes, 2 board golds, 2 board silvers and 1 board bronze). He also represented his country six times in European Team Championships, winning 3 team silver medals, a team bronze and a board gold.

World championship cycle: He was the first World Junior Champion in 1951. He subsequently played in 5 Interzonal tournaments in 1964, 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979. His result in the 1964 Interzonal in Amsterdam qualified him for the 1965 Candidates where he lost to Larsen 5.5-2.5. He just missed qualifying for the Candidates on the basis of his 1979 results.

Ranking: Ivkov was world number 9 in 1956, and was in the world's top forty between 1955 and 1975. He was also long time Yugoslavian number two after Gligoric.

Ivkov was awarded the International Arbiter title in 1986.

Wikipedia article: Borislav Ivkov