Partizan came to the 30th anniversary team championship without its major star Svetozar Gligorić, but were also weakened by the departure of Milorad Knežević. However, they could not escape from the role of favorites, especially since their biggest rivals did not send complete rosters. So Crvena zvezda played without Ljubojević and Srećko Nedeljković, Mladost without Krunosav Hulak, GM Dražen Marović left PTT team after round 5. With such a balance of power a rather uncertain fight for the title was expected. Curiously, something completely opposite happened. Partizan won the championship with a record 9½ point advantage over runners-up, a difference that would never be surpassed in the future.

The championship was still tight, but only when it came to the fight for 2nd place, as three teams scored the same number of points, while the fifth place was one point behind. Zagreb PTT was not among these 4 teams, moreover, it took only 7th place. This is how the "big four" of Yugoslav chess, which regularly, every year starting in 1965, occupied the first 4 places in the championships, was broken. This championship was the debut for IM Rakovica, a club that in the first half of the 1980s would be one of top of our chess teams.

/ taken from partizanopedia.rs /