Friðrik Ólafsson

Fridrik Ólafsson ( born January 26, 1935 in Reykjavík ) is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster.

1952 Fridrik Ólafsson was the first time national champion, a total he won this title six times. In 1958 he qualified on interzonal tournament ( with the same score as Bobby Fischer) and was so-called World Cup candidate (at that time there were precipitates in three-year cycles zone tournaments, interzonal tournaments and a Candidates tournament, the winner was allowed to challenge the world champion in a match ). In 1958 he was awarded by the FIDE Grand Master title. In 1959 he participated in the Candidates Tournament in Yugoslavia for the World Chess Championship took part and thereby the 7th Place.

For more tournament successes:

• Hastings 1955-56: 1 / 2 Place with Korchnoi
• Reykjavík 1957: 1st Place
• Zone tournament Wageningen 1957: 2nd place (1st Szabó )
• Hoogovens Beverwijk 1959: 1st Place
• Marianske Lazne Zone Tournament 1961: 1st Place
• Moscow ZCC 1961: 3rd place
• Reykjavík 1968: 3rd place
• Lugano 1970: 2nd place (1st Larsen )
• Las Palmas 1974: 2nd - 4th space
• Tallinn 1975: 2 / 3 Place with Spassky ( 1 Keres )
• Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee 1976: 1 / 2 Place with Ljubojević
• Reykjavík 1976: 1 / 2 Place with Jan Timman
• Las Palmas 1978 3rd place

Its probably the biggest tournament success was the victory of Viktor Korchnoi in Hastings and the victories at the traditional Hoogovens - Tournament, 1959 held in Beverwijk and 1976 - along with Ljubomir Ljubojević, before Mikhail Tal - in Wijk aan Zee.

Fridrik Olafsson was a professional lawyer and one of the few amateurs, at best short-term semi - professionals, which could compete internationally at the highest level of competition against professional chess player.

From 1978 to 1982 he was president of the World Chess Federation FIDE. At the tournament in Buenos Aires in 1980, he was the president of the association at the time the reigning world champion ( Anatoly Karpov ) to defeat, which is hardly ever a sports official time worldwide.

At times, Fridrik Olafsson was Secretary General of the Icelandic parliament Althingi.

According to calculations of its historical Elo rating Ólafsson's highest rating was at a number of 2692 ( October 1958 ), he was at times the number 13 in the world. His current Elo rating is 2440 (as of January 2008).