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Jun-19-05
 | | TheAlchemist: I'm not certain, but I believe the following happened to Matanovic. So, the Yugoslav team were on the way to a tournament and they went through Bulgaria. At customs, a Bulgarian officer asked them, where they were heading. Matanovic answered, they were chess players on their way to a tournament. But the officer didn't believe them and "invited" Matanovic to play a game with him. How surprised Matanovic turned out to be, when he got checkmated fairly quickly. The officer told them: "You may pass. But save that story about chess players for others." |
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| Apr-18-06 | | rochade18: similiar things happened to me too, though I am of course not in a national team... |
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| May-23-06 | | BIDMONFA: Aleksandar Matanovic MATANOVIC, Aleksandar
http://www.bidmonfa.com/matanovic_a...
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| May-23-08 | | brankat: Happy Birthday Aleksandar! |
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| May-23-08 | | utssb: <TheAlchemist> How could such a story be true? A knowledgeable GM being beaten by some Bulgarian officer? |
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| May-23-08 | | bravado1: It may be true. Back then, in communism, a lot of sportsmen officially served in the Army or border patrols because it enabled them to have a regular salary and other benefits. This customs officer could be in fact a Bulgarian grandmaster. |
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| May-23-08 | | Nikita Smirnov: bravado1: It may be true. Back then, in communism, a lot of sportsmen officially served in the Army or border patrols because it enabled them to have a regular salary and other benefits. This customs officer could be in fact a Bulgarian grandmaster. Yes,you're right.
One such good exmple of a good player joining the army was Leonid Stein.And he also got an officer post if I'm right. |
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| May-26-08 | | brankat: In East European countries in those days it was mandatory to join the armed forces service. Usually from 1-2 years. Of course there were exceptions. Some top level athletes, for example :-) |
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| May-26-08 | | Nikita Smirnov: I've also heard that under WW II some great Soviet Sportsmens got wounded or killed. |
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| May-28-08 | | utssb: <This customs officer could be in fact a Bulgarian grandmaster.> I would very much doubt that. GMs were not common in that time and surely he would have been recognized. Or he would have recognized one of the players within the group. And if he was a GM that certainly would have presented itself in conversation and no such test would be needed. Maybe it's possible that some decent club player was underestimated by Matanovic but the story seems unlikely. And surely it was no Master that he played. |
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| Jun-01-08 | | Nikita Smirnov: <utssb> How can you be so sure? |
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Jun-01-08
| | TheAlchemist: <utssb> Well, I've seen some candidate masters at my club defeat GMs and IMs at blitz a few times. Maybe he was just a specialist (of master strength or thereabout) and Matanovic might not have been so good at it. |
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| Aug-31-08 | | myschkin: . . .
"Chess Informant no. 100"
Recently, the famous Chess Informant reached a milestone: edition no. 100 was published. Facts, figures and an exclusive interview with 77-year-old editor-in-chief Aleksandar Matanovic. Forty-two years ago, in the former Yugoslavia, some chess enthousiasts had a few interesting ideas. They wanted to collect the most distinguished chess games from all major events, and publish them. For this, they established a “chess language” - an international code akin to those used in mathematics and music, equally understandable to chessplayers all over the globe. Lastly, they subsitituted traditional opening names with a classification of chess openings based on evaluation of all the available hitherto played games. In 1966, the first volume of Chess Informant was published. Within a few years, their publication (also called “Informator”) became the one and only chess bible (or should we say: bibles?) for travelling chess professionals, who in those days were known to carry more chess books than clothes in their suitcases, something we can hardly imagine in the digital era. Exclusive interview with editor-in-chief Aleksandar Matanovic ... http://www.chessvibes.com/personal/... (by chessvibes 4/2008) |
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| Nov-08-08 | | brankat: <myschkin> Thanks for the link. A very informative interview :-) |
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| Apr-17-10 | | wordfunph: <myschkin: their publication (also called “Informator”) became the one and only chess bible (or should we say: bibles?) for travelling chess professionals, who in those days were known to carry more chess books than clothes in their suitcases, something we can hardly imagine in the digital era.> true. |
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| May-23-10 | | reti: Probably, Matanovic played very weak in order to save his life! |
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May-23-11
 | | Penguincw: Wow. Aleksandar Matanovic is 81 years old. |
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| May-23-11 | | bronkenstein: Srećan rodjendan velemajstore , sve najlepše!
Or shall I say , happy birthday :) |
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| May-23-13 | | brankat: Wishing You a very happy Birthday Aleksandar! |
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| May-23-16 | | TheFocus: Happy birthday, Aleksander Matanovic. |
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| Jun-24-16 | | brankat: Last time I talked to GM Matanovic was in 1977. Hard to believe he's 86! But, then, I was 26, 65 now :-) |
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| Jan-07-17 | | wrap99: About the official beating him at chess. I have read a similar story where someone claimed to be a mathematician and the official, one himself, asked him to do a Taylor series expansion of a function. |
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| May-23-20 | | diagonal: The Serbian (Yugoslavian) grandmaster, famous founder and longtime editor-in-chief of the leading chess encyclopedia CHESS INFORMANT, esteemed author, journalist, and radio announcer, turns 90 today: Happy birthday, health and happiness. In 1955, five players got the grandmaster title: Boris Spassky, then the youngest gm of the world, Oscar Panno, and Miroslav Filip (all automatically by qualifying as a Candidate), as well as Borislav Ivkov and Aleksandar Matanovic. Aleksandar Matanovic is certainly best known as the chief editor of the legendary Chess Informant which was initiated in 1966 by him, Milivoje Molerovic, and Dragutin Sahovic, based also on previous work by Braslav Rabar who was an important co-inventor and designer of the classification systems for the Chess Informant publications. Garry Kasparov asserted: "We are all Children of Informant". Mr Matanovic is inextricably linked with the development of modern (post-war / pre-computer era) chess, compare the post from <myschkin>: A world language, "chess esperanto" for the game, understandable to everyone, on all continents and to all dialects. The code ECO, created by Matanovic, Molerovic, Rabar, Sahovic, and some others, is universal today. |
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| Aug-21-22 | | Natasha Romannoff: happy he is still with us |
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Jan-06-23
 | | OhioChessFan: Upon the death of Ivan Farago Matanovic became the oldest living Grandmaster. |
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