7/24/2019 – The Slovenian city of Maribor celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first chess club in the city this year. A number of well-known grandmasters took this opportunity to participate in this year's chess festival, among them, Antoaneta Stefanova, women's world champion from 2004 to 2006. From there she won the strong Women's Open in Shaoxing, China, scoring 7 points from 9 games. The Bulgarian, born in 1979 and the mother of a nine-month-old girl, remained undefeated and ended up one point ahead of China's Guo Qi, Harika Dronavalli of India and Munguntuul Batkhuyag from Mongolia, who shared places two to four.

7/22/2015 – Vasja Pirc (19. December 1907 – 2. June 1980) was a strong grandmaster and name-giver of the Pirc Defence, who lived most of his life in Maribor. His club ZSK Maribor regularly remembers the grandmaster with strong tournaments. The 19th Pirc Memorial was part of the Maribor Games Festival and was won by Boris Chatalbashev with a convincing score of 8.0/9.