How it all begun
For the origin of Croatia Bulldogs, we have to go all the way back in 2016.
After graduating from college in July, team manager Vjekoslav Nemec got his first job and started working from the 1st of September. Very soon, he started asking himself the eternal question: “Is there all there is?”.
He started to search for something to do as a side hustle. In November 2016, he decided to combine his love of chess with hit aptitude for writing.
He founded his chess blog Chessentials and entered the wonderful chess world he wouldn’t leave ever since.
The foundation of the team
The entry of Vjekoslav Nemec into chess chess world and the foundation of Chessentials miraculously coincided with the first inaugural season of the Pro Chess League, held in the first half of 2017.
He was not only fascinated and excited with its concept as a chess fan, but also realized that an international online chess league (and chess as an E-sport) has a lot of potential to become big.
Almost immediately after the end of the inaugural season, he started dreaming of assembling a team and participating in the league. After the league officials announced that the annual qualifier will be held where any new teams will get the opportunity to join the PCL family, he decided to try and turn these dreams in reality.
That is how, in the middle of 2017, Croatia Bulldogs team was formed under its former name Zagreb Chessentials.
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2018
Since, from the very beginning, Pro Chess League had a strong regional character and envisioned that every team should have at least three ‘local’ players (from the same ‘region’ as the native team), after the foundation of Zagreb Chessentials, the manager asked several Croatian players whether they would be willing to participate.
From the very beginning, current members of the team, Sven Tica and Leon Livaić agreed to participate. Together with the member of the ‘older generation’ of Croatian players, FM Matej Blažeka and a strong German FM Lukas Winterberg, in November, 2017, they participated in the first Qualifier for the Pro Chess League, season 2018.
Alas, every beginning is difficult. Since Leon was playing from Greece, where he was playing in an OTB tournament, he had connection issues due to which he missed half of his games and scored only 2/9. This misfortune had a decisive impact on the team’s result and we ultimately took the last place in the event.
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2019
Although the depressing performance at the Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2018 was discouraging, the team was not yet ready to give up. For the next Qualifier, the manager decided to strengthen his lineup and exercise much more ‘liberty’ when it came to negotiating with potential Zagreb Chessentials members.
This aggressive approach bore fruit and two seasoned Croatian players joined the team: Grandmaster (and blitz specialist) Zoran Jovanović and International Master Jurica Srbiš, multiple Croatian Junior champion. Together with previous members Sven Tica and Leon Livaić, they participated in the Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2019.
Considering the strength of the team, hopes and expectations were high. Alas, even though the overall performance and result were significantly better than the year before, it was still not sufficient to qualify.
After gruelling 4 hours, the team scored 25 points, 8 points less than the team that qualified directly for the league, 3.5 points less than the team that got the opportunity to qualify through the second stage and 1 points less than the team that got the opportunity to get to the second stage via a Twitter Poll.
On the verge of giving up
After the end of the regular season of the Pro Chess League 2019, it was clear that league officials are looking for ways to increase the profile of the league. The most obvious example is the Pro Chess League Summer Series, which was held for the first time.
This new policy also manifested in its attitude toward the Qualifier. It was turned into an invintational event, in which only the teams which would met certain criteria would be allowed to participate.
From the very beginning, our team tried to meet these criteria by posting on social media, inviting people to the official chesscom club of the team and organizing tournaments. At the request of the officials, the team name was also changed from Zagreb Chessentials to Zagreb Bulldogs.
Alas, this new obligations took a strain on the team manager Vjekoslav Nemec, who had trouble balancing his PCL activity with his other obligations and who was somewhat discouraged by a lack of response from the community. However, since the league officials originally envisioned even four Qualifiers, he decided to get through with it.
It all changed after chess.com’s huge announcement envisioning radical changes of the Pro Chess League format. The reduction of the number of teams, the removal of the rating cap and the decision to hold just one qualifier with one qualifying spot had a discouraging effect and Nemec was on the verge of disbanding the team and giving it all up.
Fortunately, after a brief email exchange with the league commissioner Greg Shahade, in which Greg invited the Croatian team to the qualifier and insisted he would like to see it play, Nemec changed his mind and decide to give it one last shot.
And as they say, the rest is history.
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2020: Croatia Bulldogs become a Pro Chess League Team!
Since the new format of the league included the removal of the rating cap, it was expected that teams in the Qualifier will be much stronger than in the previous years. In combination with the fact that GM Zoran Jovanović decided to opt out of the league this year and that IM Jurica Srbiš was unable to play, it meant that the rooster will once again undergo big changes.
In subsequent weeks, numerous emails were sent to different titled players all over the world, but without particular success. The majority of them were unable to play because of the conflict with over-the-board competitions held at the same time, while the others were simply unwilling/uninterested.
A couple of weeks before the qualifier, the team still only featured two players. But then a streak of good fortune followed. First, the team manager Nemec realized he never asked the third young Croatian talent Jadranko Plenča to join the team, which he did now and Jadranko immediately accepted.
Then, a final deus ex machina came in the form of the Free Agent List released by the Pro Chess League staff. When Nemec saw Tuan Minh Le’s name on the list, he immediately contacted him and after a brief email exchange, the Vietnamese ‘speed demon’ agreed to join the team.
Everyone who has read our report about the Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2020 knows what followed: Croatia Bulldogs’ young lineup of 4 International Masters went on to surprise the heavily favored Azerbaijani and Latvian teams and win the first place in the tournament And the qualifying spot with it.
On 16th November 2019, Croatia Bulldogs have officially become a member of the Pro Chess League.
Pro Chess League Season 2020
Alas, despite the sensational result in the 2020 Pro Chess League Qualifier, the momentum couldn’t have been carried out throughout the super-strong group stage in the Pro Chess League Eastern Division. The combination of extremely strong teams and the removal of the rating cap was too much for our team of 4 IMs and experienced GMs. Out of 7 matches, we managed to score a consolation win against Turkey Knights, but we ended up taking the last, 8th place in the Division, nevertheless.
Despite the painful result, the mere opportunity to participate in the league and fight against the world’s very best was an encouraging and invaluable experience and both the players and the manager have hopefully learned a lot of lessons throughout the process!
Points Table
View all| N. | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | 144 |
| 2 |  | 115.5 |
| 3 | India Yogis | 112 |
| 4 |  | 103.5 |
| 5 | Hungary Hunters | 84 |
| 6 | Israel Counsellors | 60.5 |
| 7 |  | 58.5 |
| 8 |  | 50 |
2023: The return of the Pro Chess League and participation of Croatia Bulldogs!
After the 2020 season of the Pro Chess League culminated in an unfortunate cheating scandal, Pro Chess League would take a three-year hiatus (arguably because the officials were trying to judge the results of the change of the format and also because a lot of other things were happening throughout the 2021 and 2022 with the global pandemic and the big chess boom). Fortunately, it would turn out that in 2023, the Pro Chess League would return once again!
In fact, the managers of the teams would officially be invited toward the end of 2022 to start organizing the teams and apply for the league. Since the creation of the content and collaboration with the content creators was officially endorsed, the manager of Croatia Bulldogs approached his countryman Agadmator and asked him whether he would like to be involved with the team in some capacity. Fortunately, Agadmator agreed, after which the submission was sent, and the team was invited among the 15 teams to be directly seeded into the League.
On the basis of the experience from the previous seasons and due to the somewhat altered regulations for the upcoming 2023 season, the lineup of Croatia Bulldogs was changed. The biggest name added to the rooster was the first-ever 2700 player in the Croatia Bulldogs lineup – Romaniam nr.2 Deac Bogdan-Daniel. Apart from the old players GM Leon Livaić and GM Ante Šarić, another young Croatian GM Saša Martinović was added to the rooster, together with the young Iranian talent IM Daniya Bardeshvar, one of the strongest female players on the planet – IM Polina Shuvalova and a young and talented Dutch IM Eline Roebers.
With this rooster, we are very optimistic we can be much more competitive compared to the last season and are looking forward to the beginning of the season!
11/2016
The humble beginning
Team manager Vjekoslav Nemec starts his blog Chessentials and gets involved in the chess world.
09/2017
Zagreb Chessentials founded
After the first inaugural season of the Pro Chess League and, announcement of the Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2018 and lengthy talks during the summer, Croatia Bulldogs were formed under the former name of Zagreb Chessentials.
11/2017
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2018.
Croatia Bulldogs, under the name Zagreb Chessentials, participated in the first ever Pro Chess League qualifier. The line-up consisted of IM Leon Livaić, IM Sven Tica, FM Matej Blažeka, FM Lukas Winterberg.
Due to youth, inexperience, and Leon Livaić's connection problems, Zagreb Chessentials didn't achieve any particular success and came last in the event.
11/2018
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2019.
Under the same name, but with a significantly different line-up, consisting of GM Zoran Jovanović, IM Leon Livaić, IM Sven Tica, IM Jurica Srbiš, Zagreb Chessentials participated in the second Pro Chess League Qualifier. In contrast to the previous year, the result was much better, yet they still fell short of qualifying by a few points.
10/2019
Zagreb Chessentials become Croatia Bulldogs
After the huge announcement by chess.com envisioning significant changes in the Pro Chess League format, the name of the team was changed from Zagreb Chessentials to Croatia Bulldogs. In this new capacity, the team got invited to participate in the third Pro Chess League qualifier for the season 2020.
11/2019
Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2020.
With the addition of renowned Vietnamese Tuan Minh Le and Croatian talent Jadranko Plenča to the rooster with Leon Livaić and Sven Tica, Croatia Bulldogs participated in the Pro Chess League Qualifier for the season 2020.
Despite being the youngest team and despite being the team without a single grandmaster in its ranks, the boys defied all odds and beat highly favored Azeri and Latvian teams, winning the tournament and the qualifying spot.
With this remarkable performance, Croatia Bulldogs have officially joined the Pro Chess League.
2020
Pro Chess League season 2020
Croatia Bulldogs participate in the Pro Chess League 2020, ending up in the eight, last, place in the strong Eastern Division of the League and thus failing to qualify for the play-off stage.
2023
Pro Chess League Season 2023
Croatia Bulldogs are selected as one of the fifteen teams to be seeded directly in the Pro Chess League 2023. We are also officially support by the Agadmator and manage to sign our first-ever 2700 player Deac Bogdan-Daniel.