Forgotten Genius The Life and Games of Grandmaster Dragoljub Velimirovic: VOLUME 1

Dragoljub Velimirovic was a former Yugoslav – Serbian, chess grandmasterwhose international career was handicapped by political intrigues and hisoutspoken temperament. During the heyday of the USSR as the greatestnational chess power, the former Yugoslavia was capable of running the SovietUnion a good second. Dragoljub Velimirovic posed a real threat to the men fromMoscow. Velimirovic was born in 1942 to a prominent familyfrom Valjevo, in the former Yugoslavia. He was introduced to chess at the ageof seven by his mother, Jovanka Velimirovic, one of Yugoslavia’s leading femalechess players.He died at the age 72, being one of the lastplayers to develop a system or strategy that is so inventive it bears itscreator’s name.It is a feat that is unlikely to be repeatedin the modern era, when computer-based games and databases so thoroughlydominate competition that it is almost impossible to come up with somethingnew.That does notmean that players were more talented or courageous in the decades whenVelimirovic was in his prime. Velimirovic, who became a grandmaster in 1973,was never among the 20 top-ranked players in the world. And that was when therewere only 200 or so grandmasters; today, there are about 2,400.