CHESS PLAYERS from Slovenia

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Slovene Chess Players of all time. This list of famous Slovene Chess Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Milan Vidmar (1885 - 1962)

With an HPI of 55.30, Milan Vidmar is the most famous Slovene Chess Player.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages on wikipedia.

Milan Vidmar (22 June 1885 – 9 October 1962) was a Slovenian electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, and writer. He was among the top dozen chess players in the world from 1910 to 1930 and in 1950, was among the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE. Vidmar was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.

2. Vasja Pirc (1907 - 1980)

With an HPI of 48.78, Vasja Pirc is the 2nd most famous Slovene Chess Player.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Vasja Pirc ( PEERTS; Slovene pronunciation: [ˈʋâːsja ˈpîːɾt͡s]) (December 19, 1907 – June 2, 1980) was a Yugoslav chess player. He is best known in competitive chess circles as a strong exponent of the hypermodern defense now generally known as the Pirc Defence. Pirc was champion of Yugoslavia five times: 1935, 1936, 1937, 1951, and 1953. He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the Grandmaster title in 1953. He was made an International Arbiter in 1973. Pirc was born in Idrija in 1907, then a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. He died in Ljubljana in 1980.

3. Albin Planinc (1944 - 2008)

With an HPI of 44.59, Albin Planinc is the 3rd most famous Slovene Chess Player.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Albin Planinc (also spelled Planinec) (18 April 1944 – 20 December 2008) was a Slovenian-Yugoslavian chess Grandmaster. He was born in a working-class family in Briše near Zagorje in the Central Sava Valley, in German-occupied Slovenia. Planinc won the Slovenian youth championship in 1962. He also won the full Slovenian Chess Championship in 1968 and 1971. His earliest international success occurred at the first Vidmar Memorial at Ljubljana 1969. However, his best result was achieved at the Amsterdam (IBM tournament) 1973, where he shared first place with Tigran Petrosian, ahead of Lubomir Kavalek, Boris Spassky and László Szabó. He also tied for 2nd–4th at Čačak 1969, won at Varna 1970, shared 1st at Čačak 1970, took 9th at Vršac (Kostić Memorial, Henrique Mecking won), tied for 2nd–3rd at Skopje 1971, tied for 3rd–5th at Wijk aan Zee 1974 (Corus chess tournament, Walter Browne won), took 6th at Hastings 1974/75 (Hastings International Chess Congress, Vlastimil Hort won), tied for 2nd–3rd at Štip 1978, and took 12th at Polanica Zdrój 1979 (17th Rubinstein Memorial). Planinc played on fourth board (+9 –1 =5) for Yugoslavia in the 21st Chess Olympiad at Nice 1974, where he won a team silver medal. He was awarded the GM title in 1972, then became a chess trainer when the strain of playing tournament chess was contributing to his poor mental health (in those days, medication was relatively ineffective). Planinc continued to suffer from severe depression for decades, spending the last years of his life at a mental institution in Ljubljana. In 1993, his last name was changed to Planinec by mistake. In The Penguin Encyclopedia of Chess, Grandmaster Raymond Keene said of Planinc, "he specializes in apparently outdated openings into which his imaginative play infuses new life". Mentally ill in his later years, he died in a nursing home in Ljubljana, Slovenia.