Aleksandar Matanovic, Whose Publishing Company Changed Chess, Dies at 93

Aleksandar Matanovic, a Serbian grandmaster who co-founded Chess Informant, a publishing firm that revolutionized how gamers discovered and studied the sport, died on Aug. 9 in Belgrade. He was 93 and the world’s oldest dwelling grandmaster.

His demise was introduced by the International Chess Federation, the sport’s governing physique.

Mr. Matanovic (pronounced ma-TAHN-o-vich) discovered the best way to play chess when he was 6, utilizing items his sister had customary out of clay. Largely self-taught, he fell in love with the sport and, by the point he was 18, was his nation’s junior champion. A number of years later, he was a grandmaster.

Mr. Matanovic based Chess Informant in 1966 with Aleksandar Bozic, one other grandmaster, and Milivoje Molerovic, a global grasp (the rank beneath grandmaster).

The goal of the corporate was to publish books of current video games by prime gamers, usually with their very own annotations. Mr. Matanovic functioned as the corporate’s senior editor, serving to to pick out which video games have been included. They picked video games that have been thrilling however that additionally had new or shocking opening sequences of strikes, thus advancing the collective understanding of chess.

The firm has bought greater than 4.5 million chess books up to now, based on Vitomir Bozic, the son of Aleksandar Bozic and the present common supervisor of the Informant.

Garry Kasparov, who reigned as world chess champion from 1985 to 2000 and who was born two years earlier than Chess Informant started publishing, as soon as mentioned of his era of gamers, “We are all children of Informant.”

In the a centesimal Informant, revealed in April 2008, Mr. Matanovic appeared again, noting how Informant grew to become the “Chess Bible.”

Before Informants have been revealed, it was troublesome to search out up-to-date details about video games and tournaments. Once the books began appearing — two a 12 months till 1990, three a 12 months till 2011, 4 a 12 months since 2012 — they grew to become a necessary reference for all severe chess gamers, even nonprofessionals.

For many years earlier than the web, it was frequent for gamers to journey to competitions lugging a number of Informants, and to see them feverishly learning the books between rounds. (Some gamers allotted more room of their suitcase for Informants than for adjustments of clothes and must put on the identical outfit at a match for days.)

Chess Informant additionally created a system for annotating and classifying video games — notably the openings, which had beforehand been identified solely by their names. In a five-volume collection referred to as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings, first revealed from 1974 to 1979, Informant grouped the openings collectively by letters and numbers, which made it simpler to seek for details about particular ones.

The annotation system additionally used a collection of symbols, together with a plus signal to point that one participant was in examine, and an arrow pointing to the proper which means that one participant had a powerful initiative for an assault. In an electronic mail, Mr. Bozic, the final supervisor, described Mr. Matanovic as “the brain” behind the annotation system.

Almost all chess books now use some or all the opening classifications and annotations created by Informant.

Aleksandar Matanovic was born on May 23, 1930, in Belgrade, which was then the capital of Yugoslavia. His father died when he was younger, and he discovered to play chess on the age of 6 from his older sister, who made a set from modeling clay as a result of they didn’t have items.

In 1944, after the Allies bombed German-occupied Belgrade, the household fled to Ostruznica, a village on the banks of the Sava river. There, on the seashore, folks performed chess; Mr. Matanovic mentioned he found that he was higher than everybody else, which persuaded him to stay with the sport. After World War II ended, he started competing recurrently; by 1948, he was Yugoslavia’s junior champion.

He grew to become a global grasp in 1951, and 4 years later he was awarded the title of grandmaster by the International Chess Federation.

He received the Yugoslavian nationwide championship 3 times (1962, tied for first; 1969; and 1978, once more tied for first). He additionally completed runner-up 4 occasions, in 1951, 1956, 1959 and 1967.

The outcomes have been formidable — on the time that Mr. Matanovic was competing, Yugoslavia was among the many world’s strongest chess-playing international locations. From 1954 to 1978, he was a part of 11 Yugoslavian nationwide groups within the biannual Chess Olympiads. His groups received 5 silver and 4 bronze medals, with Mr. Matanovic personally taking residence 4 medals, together with one gold, for his performances.

He additionally loved success in particular person worldwide competitions, successful or tying for first in 5 tournaments and putting second in two others.

Over the course of his profession, he beat a few of the world’s greatest gamers, together with the world champions Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian.

Mr. Matanovic met his future spouse, Vesna Kostrencic, in Zagreb, and so they have been collectively for 74 years. She survives him. His survivors additionally embrace his son, Aleksandar; three grandchildren; and 4 great-grandchildren.

Though the web has made Informants and the chess encyclopedias much less important, they proceed to be standard, and the corporate has branched out and now publishes different sorts of chess books. The 157th quantity of Informant, which is now additionally bought on DVD, will probably be launched in September.

Speaking to the Serbian newspaper Politika in May, Mr. Matanovic recalled {that a} Serbian economist informed him within the Nineteen Seventies, “The two products we export the most are berries and Chess Informant.”