Two More Guys Who Abandoned Chess

     I have written about these two great but relatively unknown players from a bygone era before and when I came across this game from the Zagreb 1955 tournament, I couldn't resist posting it. 
     Zagreb was won by Smyslov who scored 14.5-4.5 followed by Ivkov and Matanovich who were two points behind. Filip finished 9th with 10 points and Fuderer tied for 14-15 with Nikolay Minev with 8 points. BTW, Minev, who was awarded the IM title in 1960 and contributed to early editions of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and the Encyclopedia of Chess Endings, along with his wife, immigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s. They live in Seattle, Washington. 
     From 1955 to 1962 Filip qualified for the candidate tournaments twice. Filip's play was characterized as serious, solid and deep. Outside of chess he had no problem with the Soviet invasion of his country in 1968 and remained loyal to the authorities and managed to do very well. Filip did not have a fanatical enthusiasm for chess and in 2002 he was invited to attend festivities for the 40th anniversary of the 1962 Candidates Tournament held in Curacao, but he declined, saying he had pretty much lost interest in chess. While in Curacao Bobby Fischer visited a brothel and when asked later how he enjoyed it, his reply was, "Chess is better."
     His opponent in this game, Fuderer, after a promising beginning ended up abandoning the game for his real passion, chemical engineering. His swansong was the 1959 Soviet Union v Yugoslavia where, only 28 years old, he showed what might have been by beating Bronstein, the victor at Gothenburg, by a score of 3-1. In the late 1960s he left Yugoslavia for good, living in Spain and working as a chemical engineer in Antwerp. He only played in tournaments outside Yugoslavia to acquire consumer goods which when he got home he could resell at a profit to finance his university studies.