Fridrik Olafsson, Grandmaster Who Led Iceland's Rise in Chess, Dies at 90

New York Times

10-04-2025

Fridrik Olafsson, a chess grandmaster who helped make his native Iceland a bastion of the game, in part by defeating four world champions, including Bobby Fischer, the dominant American player, died on Friday in Reykjavík, the country's capital. He was 90.
The death, in a hospital, was announced by the International Chess Federation, the game's governing body. He was the organization's president from 1978 to 1982, when it was known as the World Chess Federation.
Mr. Olafsson's rise to the heights of chess was unexpected; Iceland was not known as a chess powerhouse at the time. But by the 1980s, largely because of his example, it had more grandmasters per capita than any other country.
Almost entirely self-taught, Mr. Olafsson learned the game by watching his father play.
One day, when he was 7 or 8, he was intently studying his father's moves on the chessboard in a friendly match against a relative, Mr. Olafsson recalled in an interview for this obituary in 2014. 'I remember saying he was not playing so well,' he said of his father. His father replied that if Fridrik thought he could do better, he should take his place. Fridrik did, and won.
He played in his first tournament at age 11. When he was 13, he was at master level and among the top 15 players in Iceland. At 17, he won the national championship, the first of six such titles.
He went on to win the 1953 Scandinavian championship and share first place with Viktor Korchnoi, one of the best players of the 20th century, in the 1955-56 Hastings International Chess Congress, then one of the top tournaments in the world, held in Hastings, England.
In 1958, he qualified for the Interzonal Tournament in Portoroz, Yugoslavia, where he met, and then beat, Mr. Fischer. He and Mr. Fischer tied for fifth place, which qualified them for the Candidates Tournament, held to select a challenger for the world championship. His play in that tournament earned Mr. Olafsson the highest title in chess, grandmaster, making him one of about 50 in the world at the time.
In the Candidates Tournament in 1959, also in Yugoslavia, he did not do as well, finishing seventh among eight contenders. 'I was not really prepared,' he said. 'I just came up too quickly.'
He would never compete in that tournament again.
While he continued to compete occasionally, Mr. Olafsson began focusing more on becoming a lawyer, studying at the Icelandic Academy of Law and the University of Iceland, and then working in the Icelandic Ministry of Justice.
But then, in 1972, Reyjavik was selected as the site of the world championship between Mr. Fischer and Boris Spassky, the reigning champion from Russia.
Mr. Fischer won, in what became known as the 'Match of the Century,' sparking worldwide interest in chess. It also reawakened Mr. Olafsson's passion for the game. He decided to take another stab at playing professionally.
'I wanted to see how much I could achieve,' he said.
His second stint was not successful, though he did tie for first in an annual tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, ahead of top players like Mikhail Tal, the former world champion.
Mr. Olafsson was elected the fourth president of the World Chess Federation in 1978. His tenure was dominated by issues surrounding the rivalry between Anatoly Karpov, the champion from the Soviet Union, and Mr. Korchnoi, a former Soviet star who had defected to the West in 1976.
Mr. Karpov and Mr. Korchnoi had played for the championship in the Philippines just before Mr. Olafsson took office, in what had easily been the bitterest match in history: Mr. Karpov retained the title by winning six games and losing five, with 21 more ending in draws.
In 1981, Mr. Korchnoi again qualified to face Mr. Karpov, this time in Italy. But Mr. Korchnoi's wife, Bella, and son, Igor, were denied exit visas to leave the Soviet Union; Igor had been imprisoned for refusing to join the Soviet army.
Mr. Olafsson sought to gain their release and postponed the match for three months as he traveled to Moscow to negotiate. In the end, the Soviet authorities agreed to release the family members, but only after the match, which Mr. Karpov won easily.
Despite the resolution, the Soviet authorities lobbied against Mr. Olafsson's re-election as federation president in 1982, throwing their support to Florencio Campomanes, a Filipino, who won the job. Mr. Olafsson retired from chess a second time. In 1983, he was appointed secretary of the Icelandic Parliament and held that post for 22 years until his retirement in 2005.
He was born in Reykjavík on Jan. 26, 1935.
His survivors include his wife, Audur Juliusdottir; his daughters, Bergljot and Aslaug; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Over his career, Mr. Olafsson beat Mr. Fischer (twice), Mr. Tal and Tigran Petrosian, an Armenian-Soviet player who was world champion for six years before Mr. Spassky gained the title.
He also faced Mr. Karpov in a world championship tournament, in Buenos Aires in 1980, but under curious circumstances. Mr. Olafsson was attending its opening ceremony as head of the World Chess Federation when one competitor did not show up; Mr. Olafsson was recruited to fill the vacancy. And that led him to a match against Mr. Karpov, who was considered all but unbeatable at the time.
Mr. Olafsson won, becoming the only sitting president of the federation to beat the reigning world champion in an official competition.