International invitation top tournament series in former Yugoslavia

Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina Exlusive in the web!

Belgrade (Investbanka) plus Belgrade singulars, Serbia

Bled singulars, and Bled Open series, Slovenia

Bugojno, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ljubljana, Portoroz et al., Vidmar Memorial, Slovenia List of winners

Novi Sad (Liberation tournament) plus Novi Sad singulars, Serbia

Sarajevo (Bosna), Bosnia and Herzegovina Special feature
today as an Open ongoing

Solin (Salona tournament), Croatia

Sombor, Parcetic Memorial, Serbia

Skopje (Turnir solidarnost), Macedonia Comprehensive survey

Vinkovci, Croatia An easy-to-read survey

Vrsac, Kostic Memorial, Serbia An easy-to-read survey

Zagreb (Grand Chess Tour), plus Zagreb singulars, Croatia, and
Zagreb, Rovinj/Zagreb, Rijeka/Zagreb (Tournament of Peace)

Note:

Two legendary blitz tournaments had been organised in Herceg Novi, Montenegro in 1970 and 1983.

Niksic, Montenegro, is especially famous for its world elite tournament in 1983. There had been already a strong international tournament in 1978, later there had been some further tournaments of moderate or minor strength, but no numbered series.

Titograd (today Podgorica), Montenegro, organised one particular famous tournament in 1984 (40th Anniversary of Liberation of the city)

Further cities with occasional major tournaments are, amongst others:

Bar, Montenegro

Maribor, Slovenia

Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia

Vrbas, Serbia

Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia


Important distinction:

Vinkovci (numbered) had one well-known tournament in 1968, followed by an even stronger tournament in 1970, but apart from that, Vinkovci was a series of moderate or minor strength, that's why it is not printed in bold.

Bosna, held in Sarajevo, was of world elite calibre as a longtime invitation tournament, today it is played as an open tournament of rather regional status.

The Vidmar Memorial, Slovenia, sometimes is organized as a pure national competition.

Banja Luka

Bosna

Kostic Memorial (Vrsac)

The Kostic Memorial was a pretty strong series of international invitation tournaments, in honour of legendary Bora Kostic.

Borislav (Bora) Kostic (1887 - 1963) was born in Vrsac and the first serbian grandmaster, awarded in 1950 on its inaugural list of only 27 players.

The winners include Mecking, Ehlvest, Nikolic, Sax, Smejkal, Stean, Tarjan, or Velimirovic; with many stars failing to triumph!

Among the prominent non-winners are Petrosian in 1981, Bronstein, Geller, Gligoric, Ivkov, Ljubojevic, Szabo, Portisch, Uhlmann, or Torre.

Kostic Memorial in Vrsac 1964 – 1989 & 2006 – 2012 mostly biannually played

Vidmar Memorial (Ljubljana, Portorož, Bled et al.)

Ljubljana, Portorož, Bled et al. (Vidmar Memorial), unregularly played, 20th edition in 2016: Vidmar Memorial

Skopje

The 20th Chess Olympiad 1972 at Skopje was the first Chess Olympiad which combined the men and women tournament at the same place!

1972 OLYMPIAD

USSR men: Petrosian, Korchnoi, Smyslov, Tal, Karpov, IM Savon

USSR women: Gaprindashvili, Kushnir, Levitina

SKOPJE Turnir Solidarnost 1967 – 1976 unregular

1967 Fischer
1968 Portisch
1969 Hort, Matulovic (3.= Smyslov)
1970 Taimanov, Vasiukov
1971 Polugaevsky
1972 OLYMPIAD, see above
1976 Karpov

Vinkovci

The first two tournaments were of high calibre:

1968 (1st edition) 1. Fischer (2./3. Matulovic, Hort, 4./5. Ivkov, Gheorghiu, 6. Donald Byrne, 7. Matanovic, 8./9. Robatsch, Bertok, 10. Minic, 11. Wade, etc., 14 players). Fischer won by 2 points on 11/13, Mladen Matov was last with 0.5: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79986 (1968)

1970 (2nd edition) 1. Larsen (2.-4. Gligoric, Hort, Bronstein, 5. Velimirovic, 6.-9. Szabo, Petrosian, Taimanov, Minic, 10. Maric, 11. Quinteros, 12. Parma, 13. Bertok, etc. 16 players)

Brilliancy prize: Rudolf Maric vs. Tigran Petrosian 1-0:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106872 

VINKOVCI 1968 – 1995 unregular