The latest book in the Forgotten Genius series by Thinkers Publishing, The Life and Games of Dragoljub Velimirovic (Volume 2) by Georg Mohr and Ana Velimirovic-Zorira. Picking up immediately after the end of the first volume, this time we have games, stories and photographs all the way from 1976 to 2010. It is good to be able to read and enjoy many anecdotes from those who knew the player who, despite his extremely impressive attacking flair, never quite managed to push his way up to the highest levels of chess.
According to Vlastimil Hort, Velimirovic was known to him and his Czechoslovakian teammates – in the chess Olympiads of old – as the ‘Yugoslavian Tal’. In their team meetings, it was spelled out that whoever had to face him in the team matches ‘was forbidden to play the Sicilian Defence’ due, of course, to Velimirovic’s habitual devastating attacks after 1 e4 c5.
Even Garry Kasparov – on his way to the (eventually) winning the World Chess Championship, a route paved with several ferocious Sicilian battles against Anatoly Karpov, avoided the issue in the 1982 Interzonal Tournament, when he played the Caro-Kann Defense against Velimirovic instead. This book – just like the first volume – is highly recommended to those who like to see swashbuckling chess in action.
Sean Marsh
