Milan R. Vukcevich (born Milan Radoje Vukčević; March 11, 1937 – May 10, 2003) was a
Yugoslav-American chemist, a grandmaster of
chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
and writer.
Biography
Milan Radoje Vukčević was born in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
. In 1955 he won the Yugoslav junior championship, drawing a six-game match with
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 196 ...
in the same year. In 1960, he played for
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
at the
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...
in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
and had the second best overall score at the Student Chess Olympiad in
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. In 1963 he moved to the US, settling in
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, and westernising his surname.
Vukcevich decided on a career in science rather than chess, and in the year he moved to the United States he entered
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
. He was an instructor at
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...
for six years before leaving to work for
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
, where, from 1989, he served as Chief Scientist. He published two books on science.
Vukcevich continued to play chess. In 1969 he was joint winner of the
U.S. Open Chess Championship The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since .
History
The tournament was originally the championship of the Western Chess Association, and was called the Western Open. I ...
, along with
Pal Benko
Pál C. Benkő ( hu, Benkő Pál; July 15, 1928 – August 26, 2019) was a Hungarian Americans, Hungarian-American chess player, author, and Chess composer, composer of Endgame study, endgame studies and chess problems.
Early life
Benko was ...
and
Robert Byrne. In 1975 he finished third in the
U.S. Championship, ahead of
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Herman Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski; November 26, 1911 – April 4, 1992) was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960 ...
, Robert Byrne,
Larry Evans and
Arthur Bisguier
Arthur Bernard Bisguier (October 8, 1929April 5, 2017), paternal surname Bisgeier, was an American chess player, chess promoter, and writer who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM).
Bisguier won two U.S. Junior Championships (1948, 1949), ...
among others. From 1976-79, he played in the National Telephone League, scoring 16.5 from 22 games, including wins against Bisguier,
Yasser Seirawan
Yasser Seirawan ( ar, ياسر سيروان; born March 24, 1960) is a Syrian-born American chess grandmaster and four-time United States champion. He won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979. Seirawan is also a published chess author an ...
,
Nick De Firmian
Nicholas Ernest de Firmian (born July 26, 1957) is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1985. He is a three-time U.S. chess champion, winning in 1987 (with Joel Benjamin), 1995, and 1998. He also tied for ...
and
Leonid Shamkovich
Leonid Aleksandrovich Shamkovich (Russian: Леони́д Алекса́ндрович Шамко́вич; June 1, 1923 – April 22, 2005) was a chess Grandmaster and chess writer.
He was born in a Jewish family in Rostov-on-Don in Russia.
Che ...
.
Vukcevich died in 2003 in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
and is buried in Evergreen Hill Cemetery in
Chagrin Falls
Chagrin Falls is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States and is a suburb of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio's Cleveland-Akron-Canton metropolitan area, the 19th-largest Combined Statistical Area nationwide. The village was established and h ...
.
His son, Marko, is a former guitar player in the band
Mushroomhead
Mushroomhead is an American heavy metal band from Cleveland, Ohio. Formed in 1993 in the Cleveland Warehouse District, the band is known for their avant-garde sound and horror film-inspired imagery which features masks and costumes as well as ...
from Cleveland. The "Vukcevich Super Cup" was created in his honor soon after his death.
Vukcevich Super Cup
''Vivacity Chess''.
Chess compositions
Vukcevich is better known as an author of chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...
s than as a player, however, being the first American resident to be awarded the title of International Composition Grandmaster by FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
. In 1981 he published ''Chess by Milan: Problems and Games of Dr. Milan R. Vukcevich'' and in 1998 was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame
The World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF) is a nonprofit, collecting institution situated in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It features chess exhibits, engages in educational outreach, and maintains a list of ...
, becoming only the second person (after Sam Loyd
Samuel Loyd (January 30, 1841 – April 10, 1911), was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematics, recreational mathematician. Loyd was born in Philadelphia but raised in New York City.
As a chess com ...
) to be primarily inducted for their achievements in problem composition.
Vukcevich's compositions were gathered together in ''My Chess Compositions'' (2003). He composed in all genres, including directmate
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...
s, selfmate A selfmate is a chess problem in which White, moving first, must force Black to deliver checkmate within a specified number of moves against their will. Selfmates were once known as sui-mates.
Example
The problem shown is a relatively simple examp ...
s, helpmate
A helpmate is a type of chess problem in which both sides cooperate in order to achieve the goal of checkmating Black. In a helpmate in ''n'' moves, Black moves first, then White, each side moving ''n'' times, to culminate in White's ''nth'' mov ...
s, problems with fairy pieces
A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems. Compared to conventional pieces, fair ...
and a small number of endgame studies
In the game of chess, an endgame study, or just study, is a composed position—that is, one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find the essentially uniqu ...
.
On the left is one of Vukcevich's famous problems. The key is 1. Bb6 with the threat 2. Qg6! and
3. Ne4# and 3. e4#. If 2. ... Rxf3 then 3. Rxf3#, which explains the choice of the key. In the main variations Black unpins the Queen, which can then form new batteries: 1. ... Rf5 2. Qf4!! (threat 3. Ne4#) Re5+ 3. Be4#; 2. ... Rxf4+ e4#. 1. ... Nf5! 2. Qh4!! (threat 3. Ne4#) Nxe3+ Rg6#; 2. ... Nxh4+ 3. e4#. Additional variation occurs after 1. ... e5 2. Qf5! Qxf5+ 3. e4#.
Further reading
*
*Milan Vukcevich (1981), ''Chess by Milan: Problems and Games of Dr. Milan R. Vukcevich''. MIM Company, Burton, Ohio.
References
External links
Milan R Vukcevich
chess games at 365Chess.com
*
*
Biography
ChessBase
Biographical sketch of Vukcevich
by Edward J. Covington
The Week in Chess
''The Week in Chess'' (TWIC) is a chess news web site. It was founded in 1994 and is based in the United Kingdom.
''TWIC'' has been edited by Mark Crowther since its inception in 1994. It began as a weekly Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide d ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vukcevich, Milan
1937 births
2003 deaths
Serbian chess players
Sportspeople from Belgrade
American chess players
American people of Serbian descent
Yugoslav chess players
Serbian scientists
Serbian chemists
Yugoslav emigrants to the United States
Chess composers
Serbian chess writers
American chess writers
American male non-fiction writers
General Electric people
Grandmasters for chess composition
Case Western Reserve University faculty
20th-century chess players
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers