Chess And Real Loaded Guns: My Unexpected Leap to Master Candidate
In a league of cigarette smoke, revolvers, and bohemian chaos, I bypassed the First Category and became a National Master Candidate. This is the untold story of that season.
Some of us don’t come into the world of chess through grand academies or Soviet-school rigor. Some of us stumble in late, lured by the mystique of sixty-four squares, the scent of coffee in dusty clubrooms, and the quiet promise that maybe, just maybe, we have what it takes.
I was never coached. Never had a proper opening repertoire. My chess library? A single book: Chess – The Game of Millions by IM Dragoslav Andrić. That book taught me how kings oppose each other, how a rook draws on the sixth rank, and something vaguely exciting called the Evans Gambit. The rest? Improvised, felt, lived.
Around that time, I was dabbling in the Two Knights Defense as White (The thing Americans call Fried Liver Attack), learning the Classical Variation in the Caro-Kann, and toying with the Closed Sicilian. I didn’t know theory — I was trying to understand ideas.
I entered the competitive scene late — in high school. Back then, before the FIDE rating floodgates opened, players worked their way up from Fourth to First Category, each step earned through survival and sweat. Only after that came the coveted title: National Master Candidate. There were no FIDE Candidate Master titles for reaching 2200 — in fact, that title didn’t even exist yet.
After a year and a half of scattered tournaments, I finally took Second Category. Never once did I play a First Category tournament. Then came the call that changed everything.
His name was Slavko Petović Kelera. A second-category player, eccentric, mechanic, numismatist i.e. coin collector, pigeon breeder, and folk singer with the voice of an angel and the manners of a pirate. He called and asked if I’d play for his club – Obilić – in the Novi Sad league. I said yes.
That season was nothing short of a Raymond Reddington episode directed by Emir Kusturica.
Act I: The Surprise
First round. White pieces. My opponent: an old master candidate with a 2100+ rating. He chose the Two Knights Defense. I, thrilled, went for Ng5, only to be greeted with Bc5. Traxler! Of course, I didn’t know that then. I suspected a trap, thought too long, and chickened out of Nf7, playing Bxf7+ instead. What made me pause was a sudden awareness: although Nf7 wasn't an actual piece sacrifice — since my bishop on c4 guarded the knight — I had noticed a deeper danger. My opponent could sacrifice back on f2 and unleash his queen and rook down the open f-file, targeting my uncastled king. I panicked. Opted for safety. Later, I traded my light-squared bishop for his knight on c6, and somehow, I outplayed him deep into the endgame. Victory.
A second-category player beating a master candidate in his very first league game. The whispers began.
Act II: The Clubhouse of the Damned
Obilić wasn’t your average chess club. The owner, Mita, resembling a character from an old western, wasn’t some loan shark or street thug — he was a former tough guy from the neighborhood, someone who spent his youth on the streets, earned respect the hard way, but never crossed the line into true criminality. In later years, he became a brandy-pouring, joke-cracking tavern-keeper who loved chess and took care of his own.
The matches were played in his smoky inn. The rules? Flexible. Spectators came and went. Cigarettes smoldered under wall-mounted TVs blasting football. Once, when a septuagenarian player asked for less smoke, Kelera barked, "You’re older than the first monkey, and you whine about smoke?!"
Kelera himself was a character worthy of literature. He had an encyclopedic memory for songs and a complete disregard for social conventions. But he also had one thing that chess authorities found harder to digest: a reputation for 'liberating' other people's bicycles.. Despite scoring enough points for the First Category that season, he was never awarded the title. The secretary of the Novi Sad Chess Federation at the time personally blocked his confirmation, claiming he suspected Kelera of having stolen his bicycle years earlier. The accusation was never proven, but the vendetta was effective. Kelera never officially held the First Category, despite having achieved it fair and square on the board.
He was, in many ways, larger than life. TV Novi Sad even made two documentary features about him — both tragically lost during the NATO aggression — in which he spoke of his hobbies, and quite colorfully, about his wife’s infidelity. There was a mythic air around him, but also something troubling.
Those who brought bikes in for repair were never entirely certain they’d get them back. He was arrested several times over these incidents, though he never admitted wrongdoing. One story stuck with me: a lady brought in a brand-new child’s bicycle for routine service. Kelera told her to return later that day and bring some cash. When she came back, he pointed to the space outside the shop and said, “It’s right there.” She couldn’t find it. “What do you mean it’s not there?” he snapped, rising from his workbench to show her personally. But it truly was gone.
“Where is it?” she asked in disbelief.
“Some lowlife must’ve stolen it,” Slavko muttered with sympathy.
As the woman began to complain, gesturing and raising her voice, demanding that he take responsibility, Kelera finally waved her off, saying:
“Lady, why are you upset? I’m the one who can’t charge for my labor now!”
One round, we were deep into our games when two nightclub-bouncer-types, two massive figures — muscled hulks squeezed into tight black T-shirts that clung to layers of sinew, their shaved skulls gleaming under the light, eyes vacant of thought burst in, dragged a man outside, and began slapping him around against the outer wall. One even pulled a gun on Mita’s teenage son. Players ducked. Chairs fell. Some fled. I hesitated. My position was strong. So was my will to live.
Moments later, Mita stormed in like a Balkan Charles Bronson, flattened the goons, confiscated their weapons, and reentered the hall holding two pistols like trophies. We never resumed the round. Tense silence turned into laughter. The police came. Nobody pressed charges.
I continued to play well. By the final round, I only needed a draw to earn the master candidate title. Kelera had already secured his First Category—at least over the board. We played a team captained by Pavle Nišavić, a member of Parliament. Captains agreed to an unplayed draw.
I had made it. Second to MK. No detours.
We were already there, so we decided to play some casual blitz games. In one of them, Kelera’s opponent — a tidy gentleman in his fifties — remarked that it seemed Slavko had made an illegal move. That was enough to trigger Kelera’s trademark expression: the bewildered anteater face, as he loudly and forcefully explained why he was right.
The man, clearly not eager to argue, backed down and tried to calm things with a simple: “No problem.”
But that wouldn’t do for Slavko. He snapped back: 'Not "no problem"—there's a huge problem.' He then launched into a tirade so vulgar it stunned the room into silence, crudely questioning the man's masculinity and ending with an unprintable threat that left the man pale and speechless.
Act III: The Toast
Years later, I became captain of a club called Promocija. I did not play, just lead the team.
What I remember most vividly is a match against one of the strongest teams in the league, featuring IM Filip Kostić — a man who completed a chess university in Russia — on board one, and FM Ramo Mujagić, a former champion of Vojvodina, on board two. Knowing this, I deliberately placed our late friend Peđa Novaković — with his long hair and unshaven face, reminiscent of a biker or someone just back from Woodstock — on board one, and Ćomi Knežević, a passionate preferans (a popular card game of Eastern European gentlemen) player with modest chess ambitions, on board two, so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice our stronger players to those beasts.
Peđa and Ćomi shared not only a love for chess, but also a well-known weakness for strong drink. It wasn’t rare for them to play their games while already “warmed up.” This higher division of competition included an arbiter — in this case, perhaps the strictest in the entire league. A man so old he looked like he might have personally attended the Berlin Congress.
As the match progressed, to my amazement, both Peđa and Ćomi were standing better. Clearly pleased, Ćomi suddenly reached into his inner pocket, pulled out two hip flasks (small 187 ml pear-shaped glass bottles), handed one to Peđa, and opened the other for himself. Like old tavern bohemians, they clinked bottles and took hearty swigs — to the stunned disbelief of everyone present. Alcohol was strictly forbidden, as was talking, let alone loudly toasting as if at a wedding.
The shocked arbiter demanded to see the team captain. When I appeared before him, he was red with rage, demanding that I confiscate the drinks from my players, shouting that he had never witnessed anything like this in his long career. I apologized, took the bottles from the guys, and warned them the arbiter would expel them if they didn’t stop. I placed the bottles on a nearby table and continued walking around the hall, checking on the other games.
But when I turned back, I saw Ćomi casually walk to that table, pick the bottles back up, hand one to Peđa, and the two toasted once more — still standing tall on the board, against experienced masters sweating in their chairs. The sound of glass clinking and their boozy voices made the arbiter rush over again, now bulging with fury. He snatched the bottles from their hands and ordered me to remove the alcohol from the playing hall. Grateful we hadn’t forfeited the match, I quickly did as told, tossed the bottles in a nearby bin, and returned to sternly reprimand my teammates, reminding them they couldn’t do that.
We thought the incident was over. But ten minutes later, Ćomi somehow pulled out another two flasks and once again: clinking, toasts, loud laughter. The arbiter was on the verge of a heart attack. Even the opposing team was laughing — everyone except Filip and Muja, who were groaning under the pressure of my drunk but surging players.
The arbiter no longer spoke; he simply took the bottles and removed them himself. Naturally, Ćomi still had more. The third toast happened when Peđa already had a won position, and Ćomi had an indisputable advantage in the endgame. The arbiter was screaming at me, they were drinking, couldn’t care less, I was grabbing bottles and tossing them out, glancing at their boards again.
IM Filip Kostić resigned — Peđa triumphantly celebrated, barely able to keep his eyes open — and Ćomi, a pawn up, was pressing hard. The aging FM Mujagić was nearly falling out of his chair. Though Ćomi, by then totally drunk, missed the winning move, he secured an easy draw.
So, from two games we expected to lose, we scored 1.5 out of 2.
This story has been retold among Novi Sad chess players for over twenty years now.
Epilogue: The Lost World
After that fabled season, I stepped away from classical tournaments. My FIDE rating peaked at 2058. I now play blitz and rapid, more for love than legacy.
Sometimes I think back to those days of smoky rooms, of thunderous Mita, of Kelera and his fierce voice, of endgames won under threat of violence, of cheers and toasts during games that mattered. There was chaos, yes. But there was magic, too.
They don’t make leagues like that anymore.
And they certainly don’t make men like Kelera.
These days, I see young 'influencers' with ring lights and fake humility, rehearsing their 'emotional journeys' for a thousand likes. Chess, for them, is a backdrop. Not the storm. Not the blood. Their followers applaud mediocrity dressed in pastel filters. They talk about courage but never felt fear at a board surrounded by cigarette smoke and flying fists. Their world is curated. Our world was raw.
I’m not nostalgic. I’m mourning a world that had soul. This post is a tribute to a vanished chess world – one of character, grit, laughter, and impossible beauty.
