Petar Benković, then a 29-year-old International Master, planned to open a chess school in Sremska Mitrovica. Although financial obstacles stood in the way, his idea was clear: to bring chess closer to children from the youngest age.
Chess as a School for Life
Although already a successful and established chess player, Petar explained that his first sporting steps were not on the chessboard. From the age of four to seven he practised gymnastics and showed talent in that sport, but later devoted himself completely to chess.
His mother taught him to play chess when he was six, and he enjoyed playing with his grandfather, who was a second-category chess player. Other members of his mother’s family were also good chess players.
He began competing at the age of eleven and, even at a very young age, showed that he could achieve serious results.
Achievements and Role Models
The newspaper article highlights a number of Petar Benković’s results. At the Children’s Olympiad in 1996 he won first place, and in the same year he was the best junior player at the Vojvodina Cadet Championship.
From 1995 to 1997 Benković played for the I.S.K. chess club and trained with International Master Miodrag Jovančević from Sremska Mitrovica. He finished second at both the Vojvodina Cadet Championship and the Yugoslav Cadet Championship, and in 1997, as a member of the Novi Sad Chess Club, continued to achieve notable results.
Later came appearances for different clubs and tournaments in Serbia and abroad, together with international experiences that shaped his chess career.
Chess School
Petar Benković worked to turn the idea of a chess school for children aged seven to fifteen into reality. The plan was for children to learn not only chess, but also patience, concentration, friendship, team spirit and respect for the opponent.
The article explains that the school would teach the rules of the game and basic tactics, solve chess problems, and organize tournaments, social activities and simultaneous exhibitions. The idea was to make chess understandable, interesting and accessible to children.
A Memorable Game
The newspaper article also includes a section entitled “A Memorable Game”, with the score of Petar Benković’s game against Dragan Šolak at a grandmaster tournament in Novi Sad in 1998. This makes the article not only an interview, but also a small chess archive of its time.
The same newspaper page also contains a report from the Vojvodina Open Blitz Championship, where the Srem chess club finished fourth.
Source: archival newspaper article “Šah je fantastičan spoj igre, nauke, sporta i umetnosti”, Sremske novine, Wednesday, 30 December 2009. The text has been reformatted and adapted for web reading from the original newspaper page.