One noteworthy Olympiad win came in 1964 at Tel Aviv, when he defeated the Soviet champion GM Leonid Stein. In 1970, he scored a Grandmaster norm (a performance rating of over 2600) at Siegen; this would be his best career performance. He also served as the captain of the 1980 Canadian team, which attained Canada's second-best result to date, ninth place on tiebreak. Vranesic played chess at a high level, but was never a professional player. He earned the title of International Master of Correspondence Chess (IMC) in 1973. He has been virtually retired from serious chess competition since the mid-1990s.