Radojcic Whips Warren

   The North Central Open began in 1954 as an unofficial regional championship of the USCF and was one of the strongest opens in the nation. It was won several time by Wiiliam Martz and after his death it was known for many years as the William Martz Memorial. In 1957 the event was won by Bobby Fischer. 
     The 1964 Open was played at the luxurious Plankinton House Hotel in Milwaukee and was a seven‐round Swiss in which 108 players, including one GM and 15 Masters, participated. 
     Miro Radojcic won the event on tiebreaks with a score of 6-1. His score was equaled by Robert Byrne of Indianapolis and by the Chicago Masters Albert Sandrin and Edward Formanek. Three other Chicago Masters tied at 5.5-1.5: Paul Tautvaisas, Vasa Kostic and Richard Verber. Edmar Mednis of New York topped a group scoring 5‐2 while former two time winner Curt Brasket of Minneapolis finished just below the prize winners. 
     Miroslav Radojcic (August 24, 1920 - January 14, 2000, 79 years old) was a Yugoslav National Master and USCF Master, but was probably more famous as one of Yugoslavia's most renowned political journalists for the paper Politika. During the 1960s he worked out of the United Nations in New York as Politika's foreign correspondent to the US, and later in the 1970s he was assigned the same post for London. He also contributed a long-running column for Chess Life called Observation Point. 

Radojcic

     Back in 1967, terrible tempered Bobby Fischer walked out of the Interzonal in Sousse, Tunisia then re-entered only to walk out again. He fought with the officials, complained about the lights, objected to the noise, threatened to smash a news photographer's camera and, so far as his chess was concerned, he beat almost everybody; he was +7 -0 =3 when he left for good. 
     On the eve of his departure Fischer told an interviewer, “I’m leaving these patzers to fight against each other for the right to play against another patzer."  Details…  
     In his Observation Point column of February, 1968, Radojcic more or less took Fischer’s side. He wrote that as Fischer’s friend, he sensed Fischer was haunted by feelings that amounted almost to a persecution mania and at the same time that his behavior was at times childish and illogical, insulting and undignified.” 
     Radojcic looked at Fischer’s behavior like a “wise theatrical director might”...stars are all a bit “silly” and the “the bigger the star, the greater the right to be silly.” 
     In Radojcic’s opinion the TD and tournament committee should have shown a little more leniency and used a little more diplomacy. He thought the actions of the officials only strengthened Fischer’s impression that everybody was being malicious wanted him to leave. 
     Radojcic pointed out that there were some other complaints about the tournament and the TD acted in a petty manner when he refused to move Fischer’s table to a location where the light was more to Fischer’s liking. They were playing in a vast room where there was a lot of empty space and in his game against Miguel Cuellar of Columbia both of them actually picked up their table and carried it to a different location. 
     The year 1964 was a good one for Radojcic...besides winning the North Central Open he finished in 2nd place in the US Open in Boston with Robert Byrne and James T. Sherwin behind Pal Benko and he won the Florida Open.
     Radoicic style was described as smooth and uncluttered with imaginative strategy fortified by eclectic tactics that lead to positions where the fluidity of the pieces brought about about surprising denouements. 
     His opponent in the following game was James E. Warren of Lombard, Illinois, who passed away on December 12, 2014, at the age of 81. Warren worked for Western Electric (later AT&T Technologies) until a 1989 heart attack forced him to take an early retirement. 
     Warren was known for his contribution to Illinois chess as a player, organizer, patron and volunteer is. His wife Helen was a co-founder of the Illinois Chess Association. 
     As a USCF Expert, Warren was a prominent player in the Chicago Industrial Chess League back in the days when having a 2000+ rating was a big deal; masters were rare birds and GMs were mythical people living in far away places...you hardly ever saw one. Warren played Bobby Fischer twice on his 1964 simultaneous tour; they drew on March 22 and again on May 20, 1964.
     After Professor Arpad Elo created his rating system, Warren was instrumental in its 1960 implementation by the USCF where he served as Rating Statistician, wrote a computer program for calculating ratings, and he suggested to Professor Elo that the Harkness System's classifications of Master, Expert, Class A, Class B, Class C should be included. It wasn’t until 1970, the Elo system was adopted by FIDE.

Play Online Chess

[Event "North Central Open, Milwaukee"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1964.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "James Warren"]
[Black "Miroslav Radojcic"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{D49: Semi-Slav: Meran System: Main line with 9 e4 c5 10 e5 cxd4 11 Nxb5} 1.
d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. Nf3 Nf6 {This is the Semi-Slav which may be
reached by a number of different move orders. Black is threatening to capture
on c4 and hold the P with b7-b5. White can avoid this in a number of ways,
usually with 5.Bg5 which involves a sharp P-sac. Other possible moves are
5.Qb3, 5.g3 and 5.cxd5.} 5. e3 Nbd7 {The main line. Other moves are rarely
seen.} 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 a6 9. e4 c5 10. e5 cxd4 11. Nxb5 {This is
all book and this is the only really good move here. Black has three
reasonablr replies: 11. ..axb5, 11...Nxe5 and the move Radojcic plays.} 11...
Ng4 {Here white has a choice of three reasonable moves: 12.Qa4, 12.Nbxd4 and
12.Nd6+} 12. Be4 {This departure from theory does not work out well for white
because Radojcic sacrifices the exchange for a P and prolonged pressure
against Warren's K.} 12... axb5 13. Bxa8 Qa5+ 14. Nd2 {No doubt this was the
move that because of the discovered attack on the N on g4 that Warren expected
to hold everything together. He was probably counting on 14...Qxa8 15.Qxg4
with complications where the chances would be about equal. For his part,
Radojcic misses the more potent 14...Nxf2!} 14... Ngxe5 15. Be4 {This position
is unclear. Stockfish's immediate reaction was that it was equal but then it
quickly gave black a slight edge. I ran a Shootout and the results were +2 -2
=1, so the chances are definitely even!} 15... f5 16. Bc2 Bb7 {With 16...d3!
he could have cramped white even more.} 17. O-O Qa8 18. f3 {In the long run
white will p[ay for this slight weakening of his Ks position. A better way,
although not completely satisfactory, of defending g2 was 18.Qh5+ and 19.Qh3}
18... d3 19. Bb3 {It's obvious that black now has the upper hand because
white's position is badly cramped.} 19... Bc5+ 20. Kh1 Kf7 21. Qe1 g5 22. Qg3
h6 {White's best chance now would have been to try for some play with 23.a4.
Instead, he tries a cheap trick that in the end only costs time.} 23. Qh3
{With the obvious threat of 24.Qxc5+ because the e-Pawn is pinned.} 23... Ke7
24. Qg3 {This is just a wasted move which he can't afford. Something like
24.a4 was better although black still retains the edge. } 24... Rg8 25. Re1
Bd4 26. h3 h5 27. a4 {It's now too late for this move to have any bearing on
the outcome.} 27... f4 28. Qh2 Nc5 29. Ra3 b4 30. Ra2 Nxb3 31. Nxb3 Nxf3
{Facing the loss of his Q and mate Warren gave up. A solid performance by
Radojcic.} 0-1