Fridrik Olafsson, 1935-2025
Rest in peace.
A month and a half ago I noted Icelandic Grandmaster and former Candidate Fridrik Olafsson’s 90th birthday; today, unfortunately, it’s already time to take notice of his passing, which took place this past Friday. (Peter Doggers has written a detailed obituary here that’s worth your time.) I knew from when I was a child that he had been a Candidate (no, I wasn’t alive when he achieved that; my awareness came from reading books, especially about Bobby Fischer), but never properly appreciated how good he was. Quoting from the second paragraph of the aforementioned obituary:
Olafsson was among the world’s best 50 players for about a quarter of a century, between 1955 and 1980. In this period, he defeated many of the biggest names in chess, including World Champions Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Bobby Fischer, and Anatoly Karpov, but also e.g. Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Viktor Korchnoi, Mark Taimanov, Yuri Averbakh, Miguel Najdorf, Bent Larsen, Svetozar Gligoric, Lajos Portisch, Robert Hubner, Zoltan Ribli, Ulf Andersson, Jan Timman, Tony Miles, and Yasser Seirawan.
Most of us would be satisfied defeating only half the players on that list…or even one of them. (For those of you who are new to chess, those are all or almost all players who were in the world’s top 5-10 at their peaks. Certainly top 20.) So, he’s someone whose chess is worth remembering, and he had an honorable tenure as the President of FIDE as well - and he did this as an amateur, getting a law degree and working for the Icelandic government for much of his 30s. Very impressive, as you’ll see if you browse the article linked to above.
Rest in peace.