Petar Trifunović

Petar Trifunović (Serbian Cyrillic; Петар Трифуновић; 31 August 1910 – 8 December 1980) was a Yugoslav and Serbian chess player, who was awarded the international grandmaster title, and was a five-time Yugoslav champion.

Trifunovic came 3rd in the first Yugoslav championship (1935), 2nd in 1936, 1937 (shared with Mirko Breder and Boris Kostić), 1938 (shared with Milan Vidmar and Lajos Asztalos) and won in 1945, 1946, 1947 (shared with Svetozar Gligorić), 1952 and 1961.^[5] In total, Trifunović was among the top three players in the Yugoslav chess championship 16 times, which is second-most all time behind Gligorić's 18.^[5] The young Trifunovic was also an excellent scholar, obtaining a law degree in 1933, followed by a doctorate.

He had a reputation as an attacking player in the 1930s, when he was known as 'Typhoonovic'. Later, he concentrated more on positional play and defensive technique, his style becoming less adventurous but difficult to refute. As a result, he drew many games. For example, his drawn match with Miguel Najdorf at Opatija 1949 included ten drawn games (+1−1=10),^[6] and at Leipzig in 1965 he drew all 15 of his games.

His international tournament successes included: Zlín 1945 (first), Prague 1946 (tied for second after Najdorf), Lima 1950 (first), Cheltenham 1951 (tied for second after Gligorić) and Belgrade 1954 (third after Bronstein and Matanović, but ahead of Gligorić and Petrosian). At Netanya 1961 he tied for first with Matulović and Czerniak. At Prague 1961 and Beverwijk 1962 he came outright first and at Sarajevo, also in 1962, third after Gligorić and Portisch. Trifunović tied for first with 10 players at the 1962 Oklahoma City Open after drawing with Ken Smith and drawing with Bob Potter, a little-known expert from Dallas. At Noordwijk in 1965 he finished second to Botvinnik (ahead of Flohr, Larsen and Donner).

His greatest success on the World Championship cycle was participation in the 1948 Interzonal tournament where he finished in tenth place, narrowly missing the chance to participate in the inaugural 1950 Candidates Tournament.

After the introduction of chess titles in 1950, FIDE awarded him the international master title that same year and the grandmaster title in 1953 making him the third Serbian to become a grandmaster, after Boris Kostić (1950) and Svetozar Gligorić (1951). He played for his country in seven Chess Olympiads between 1935 and 1962 during which he won one gold, two silver and two bronze medals. His best individual result was the event held in his birthplace, Dubrovnik, in 1950. A score of 10/13 won him the board 3 gold medal. This was during a golden age of Serbian chess, a period when Yugoslavia (led by Serbian grandmasters like Trifunović, Gligorić, Ivkov, Matanović, Matulović, Ljubojević etc.) was the world's second-strongest chess nation.

During his career, Trifunović won 8 team and board medals at Chess Olympiad, which makes him the fourth-most decorated Serbian and Yugoslav player of all time behind Aleksandar Matanović (13), Svetozar Gligorić (13) and Borislav Ivkov (14).

• Warsaw 1935: board 4, 12½/16 (+10 =5 −1), board bronze;
• Munich 1936: board 2, 11/17 (+8 =6 −3), team 4th;
• Stockholm 1937: board 2, 11/16 (+8 =6 −2), board bronze;
• Dubrovnik 1950: board 3, 10/13 (+8 =4 −1), board gold, team gold;
• Helsinki 1952: board 3, 7/13 (+3 =8 −2), team bronze;
• Amsterdam 1954: board 3, 7/12 (+3 =8 −1), team bronze;
• Munich 1958: board 4, 7/11 (+5 =4 −2), team silver;
• Varna 1962: board 2, 9/15 (+4 =10 −1), team silver;

• Vienna 1957: board 4, 3/5 (+1 =4 −0), board gold, team silver;
• Oberhausen 1961: board 2, 5/9 (+1 =8 −0), team silver;
• Hamburg 1965: board 6, 3½/7 (+0 =7 −0), team silver;

He popularised and subsequently had his name associated with a variation of Alekhine's Defence. The Trifunovic Variation is identified by the move 5...Bf5 as a counter to White's Four Pawns Attack (1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4).

On 23 September 2020, the public company Pošta Srbije released new postage stamps called "Chess Giants of Serbia". In addition to Trifunović, Svetozar Gligorić, Boris Kostić, Milan Matulović and Milunka Lazarević were also given this honour. On that occasion, short biographies of the players depicted on these stamps were also published. The texts are given in Serbian and English, and their authors are: Trifunović's teammate from the national team and close friend, grandmaster Aleksandar Matanović and sports journalist Miroslav Nešić.^[7]

• Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1996) [First pub. 1992]. The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280049-3.
• Cozens, W. H. (1985). The Lost Olympiad: Stockholm 1937. British Chess Magazine. ISBN 0-900846-43-7.

• Petar Trifunovic player profile and games at Chessgames.com
• Petar Trifunovic chess games at 365Chess.com
• Petar Trifunović Chess Olympiad record at OlimpBase.org
• Visa with photo 1953
• Visa with photo 1955