Svetozar Gligoric, a chess grandmaster who was considered one of the greatest players of the 20th century but who never won the world championship — in one instance losing a chance to play for the title by executing a fatally impulsive move in response to critics who found his match boring — died on Tuesday in Belgrade, Serbia. He was 89.

The World Chess Federation confirmed the death on its Web site.

Mr. Gligoric was patrician and gentlemanly in his bearing, but was a dynamo at the chess board and was one of the most successful and respected players in the world in the 1950s and ’60s, winning dozens of tournaments.

He won the Yugoslavian championship a record 12 times from 1947 to 1971 and played for Yugoslavia in the biennial Chess Olympiad 15 times, leading the team to the gold medal in 1950, ahead of the powerful Soviets.

He was among the finalists to challenge the world champion three times, but came up short. In the 1953 tournament in Switzerland to pick the challenger, he finished 13th out of 15 players. Six years later, in Yugoslavia, he tied with Bobby Fischer for fifth out of eight players.