The Milan Vidmar Memorial is a strong closed

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

tournament commemorating

Milan Vidmar Milan Vidmar (22 June 1885 – 9 October 1962) was a Slovenian electrical engineer, chess player, Chess theory, chess theorist, and writer. He was among the top dozen chess players in the world from 1910 to 1930 and in 1950, was among the inaugu ...

(1885–1962), a leading Slovenian grandmaster. The tournament has been held mostly in a biannual rhythm in several Slovenian cities, i.e.:

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

Portorož Portorož (; it, Portorose) is a Slovenian Adriatic seaside resort and spa town located in the Municipality of Piran in southwestern Slovenia. Its modern development began in the late 19th century with the vogue for the first health resorts. In ...

, Rogaška Slatina,

Bled Bled (; german: Veldes,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 146. in older sources also ''Feldes'') is a town on Lake Bled in the Upper C ...

, and

Ptuj Ptuj (; german: Pettau, ; la, Poetovium/Poetovio) is a town in northeastern Slovenia that is the seat of the Municipality of Ptuj. Ptuj, the oldest recorded city in Slovenia, has been inhabited since the late Stone Age and developed from a Roman ...

.dr. Milan Vidmar Memorial Tournaments
/ref> The first Vidmar Memorial was held in 2–20 June 1969 in Ljubljana as an international invitation tournament:

Albin Planinc Albin Planinc (also spelled Planinec) (8 or 18 April 1944 – 20 December 2008) was a Slovenian-Yugoslavian chess Grandmaster. He was born in a working-class family in Briše near Zagorje in the Central Sava Valley, in German-occupied Sloven ...

emerged as sensational winner. The event in 1995 at

was a Zonal Tournament, with Stefan Kindermann who did win,

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...

, and

Thomas Luther Thomas Luther (born November 4, 1969, in Erfurt) is a German chess player and International Grandmaster of chess. In 2000 he was a member of the German team that won the silver medal in the 34th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. Childhood and Youth He ...

earning a spot in a round robin of players from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, and

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...

to advance (due to the split of

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 1993, the World Chess Championship cycles collapsed and it turned out that there were no longer

Interzonal Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...

s to be held). From 2007 (17th edition, ten players from Slovenia) to 2011 (19th edition), the Vidmar Memorial claim was occasionally, but not regularly used for the National Chess Championship of Slovenia. In 2016, the jubilee Vidmar Memorial XX is organised again as an international invitation tournament.

Winners

References

XVII dr. Milan Vidmar Memorial-National Championship
at fide.com {{Chess tournaments Chess competitions Chess in Slovenia Chess in Yugoslavia Sport in Ljubljana 1969 in chess Recurring sporting events established in 1969 Chess memorial tournaments