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The Milan Vidmar Memorial is a strong closed chess tournament commemorating Milan Vidmar (1885–1962), a leading Slovenian grandmaster.
History edit
The tournament has been held mostly in a biannual rhythm in several Slovenian cities, i.e.: Ljubljana, Portorož, Rogaška Slatina, Bled, and Ptuj.[1]
The first Vidmar Memorial was held in 2–20 June 1969 in Ljubljana as an international invitation tournament: Albin Planinc emerged as sensational winner.
The event in 1995 at Ptuj was a Zonal Tournament, with Stefan Kindermann who did win, Viktor Korchnoi, and Thomas Luther earning a spot in a round robin of players from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Slovenia to advance (due to the split of FIDE in 1993, the World Chess Championship cycles collapsed and it turned out that there were no longer Interzonals 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 edit
# Year City Winner 1 1969 Ljubljana 
Albin Planinc (Yugoslavia)
2 1973 Ljubljana, Portorož 
Lajos Portisch (Hungary)
3 1975 Portorož, Ljubljana 
Anatoly Karpov (Soviet Union)
4 1977 Ljubljana, Portorož 
Bent Larsen (Denmark)
5 1979 Bled, Portorož 
Jan Timman (Netherlands)
6 1985 Portorož, Ljubljana Lajos Portisch (Hungary), Zoltán Ribli (Hungary),
Anthony Miles (England)
7 1987 Portorož, Ljubljana Ivan Sokolov (Yugoslavia),
Uwe Bönsch (East Germany)
8 1989 Ljubljana, Rogaška Slatina Predrag Nikolić (Yugoslavia)
9 1991 Bled, Rogaška Slatina Predrag Nikolić (Yugoslavia)
10 1993 Portorož, Rogaška Slatina 
Ivan Sokolov (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
11 1995 Ptuj (Zonal) 
Stefan Kindermann (Germany)
12 1997 Portorož 
Vadim Zviagintsev (Russia)
13 1999 Portorož 
Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia)
14 2001 Portorož Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia)
15 2003 Portorož Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia),
Emil Sutovsky (Israel)
16 2005 Portorož Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia)
17 2007 Ljubljana
(National Championship) Duško Pavasovič (Slovenia)
18 2009 Otočec
(National Championship) Luka Lenič (Slovenia)
19 2011 Ljubljana
(National Championship) Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia)
20 2016 Bled 
Andrei Volokitin (Ukraine)
