The Opening Move
FIDE Arena International Master. 3 titles. 7 countries. 15 coaches.
From age 12 — the game that built everything else.
Chess did not begin as a sport. It began as a language — one learned late by the world’s standards. At 12, the pieces made sense before the rules did. Most players that age already had years behind them. At 14, the promise came before the proof. At 16, the Grandmaster title never came — and the rest of a remarkable life did instead.
That is not a story of falling short.
That is a story about what happens when you aim at the hardest thing first — and let everything it teaches you build what comes next.
2022
2024
2026
The record — three titles, seven countries
Serbia summer circuit
First international title
35-day Caissa marathon
Türkiye
Third & highest title
7 countries · 15 coaches
The Board at Age 12
A chessboard in Serbia. Four classical tournaments, back to back. Five-hour games. Hotel rooms blurring. The rating didn’t surge. Nobody was watching. But the board stamina that won Budapest eight months later was built in those rooms.
“The commitment is often invisible until the moment it isn’t.”
Serbia is why Budapest happened.
The Board at Age 16
Four years. The board did not change. April 2023 — six weeks after Budapest — the same tournament returned −82.8 FIDE points. Both players shook hands. The board reset. He did not. He kept playing, across four more countries and through the plateau.
“Losing is information. The question is never whether you lost — it is what you do with the next position.”
The board didn’t change. The player did.
Four years between these two photographs
The Grandmaster I Never Became
The shirt predated the title. The conviction came before the credentials. The GM title never came — and from that specific distance, everything else became possible. Not despite the unbecome ambition. Because of it.
“Not as a regret, but as the origin of a different life.”Read the book ↗
Chess is where Calculate. Commit. Continue. came from
The motto did not arrive as a philosophy. It arrived as a description of what was already happening — and it happened first on a chessboard.
“The board taught me that losing is information. The question is never whether you lost — it is what you do with the next position.”
Take the risk anyway.”