Petar Trifunovià(Serbian Cyrillic; ÃÂõÃÂðàâÃÂøÃÂÃÂýþòøÃÂ; 31 August 1910 â 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 KostiÃÂ), 1938 (shared with Milan Vidmar and Lajos Asztalos) and won in 1945, 1946, 1947 (shared with Svetozar GligoriÃÂ), 1952 and 1961. In total, TrifunoviÃÂ was among the top three players in the Yugoslav chess championship 16 times, which is second-most all time behind GligoriÃÂ's 18. 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 (+1âÂÂ1=10), and at Leipzig in 1965 he drew all 15 of his games.
His international tournament successes included: ZlÃÂn 1945 (first), Prague 1946 (tied for second after Najdorf), Lima 1950 (first), Cheltenham 1951 (tied for second after GligoriÃÂ) and Belgrade 1954 (third after Bronstein and MatanoviÃÂ, but ahead of GligoriÃÂ and Petrosian). At Netanya 1961 he tied for first with MatuloviÃÂ and Czerniak. At Prague 1961 and Beverwijk 1962 he came outright first and at Sarajevo, also in 1962, third after GligoriÃÂ and Portisch. TrifunoviÃÂ 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 KostiÃÂ (1950) and Svetozar GligoriÃÂ (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 TrifunoviÃÂ, GligoriÃÂ, Ivkov, MatanoviÃÂ, MatuloviÃÂ, LjubojeviÃÂ etc.) was the world's second-strongest chess nation.
During his career, TrifunoviÃÂ 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 MatanoviÃÂ (13), Svetozar GligoriÃÂ (13) and Borislav Ivkov (14).
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 Poà ¡ta Srbije released new postage stamps called "Chess Giants of Serbia". In addition to TrifunoviÃÂ, Svetozar GligoriÃÂ, Boris KostiÃÂ, Milan Matuloviàand Milunka Lazareviàwere 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: TrifunoviÃÂ's teammate from the national team and close friend, grandmaster Aleksandar Matanoviàand sports journalist Miroslav Neà ¡iÃÂ.