Olympiad Spotlight: Nordic Countries
Welcome back to the 45th Chess Olympiad showcase — where we give you a sneak peek into the countries participating in the event, their chess history, and other bits the chess enthusiast in you would love to know!
This time, we take you to the snowy landscapes and white-capped mountains of the Nordic countries.
Brief History of Chess in the Nordic Countries
In the countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, intense physical sports like cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, speed skating, and football are the most popular.
But Nordic countries are also home to many mind warriors.
Born in Latvia in 1886, Aron Nimzowitsch went to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1922 and stayed there for the rest of his life.
In Copenhagen, Nimzowitsch reached his peak as a player, with historic rating lists ranking him at #3 in the world between 1927 and 1931.
He also won the Nordic championship twice and scored first-place finishes in Copenhagen 1923, Dresden 1926, and Carlsbad 1929, just to name a few.
After Nimzowitsch, the Nordic region produced many strong players. But it was Bent Larsen who captured the world’s attention from the 1960s to early 1970s.
The 6-time Danish champion and 4-time World Championship candidate, Larsen was ranked as high as #4 in the world. He was also one of the few non-Soviet GMs in the top 10 — at a time when the USSR dominated the chess world.
Larsen carved out a reputation as a risk-taker and a dangerous opponent for anyone. Even world champions had to yield to his imaginative play and unorthodox ideas…which was the polar opposite of our next Nordic chess hero, Ulf Andersson of Sweden.
Andersson reached a peak rating of 2655 FIDE and a peak ranking of world #4 — mostly by playing rock-solid positional chess.
He built a name for winning “unwinnable” endgames with very little risk. In the middlegame, his prophylactic skills allowed him to spot and avoid enemy tactics from a mile away. After which, he ground his opponents to dust.
In many ways, Andersson’s play style reminds us of the strongest and most famous chess player from the region — the 16th World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
Carlsen has reached the top, and stays there by squeezing blood from a stone. It doesn’t matter if the engine says the position is 0.00. He will grind you down with superior positional play and endgame technique.
But Carlsen is also just as capable of playing à la Larsen or Nimzowitsch.
Many times, he has taken the road less traveled and played obscure openings with great success — even in World Chess Championship matches!
Carlsen may have relinquished the crown in 2023,but with a rating of 2832, he’s not relinquishing the #1 spot any time soon!
The Nordic Contingent for the 45th Chess Olympiad
A few Chessable authors made it to the top boards of the Nordic Olympiad teams, starting with Magnus Carlsen.
Carlsen takes up the first board of Norway, while fellow author Johan-Sebastian Christiansen mans the second board. Christiansen’s Alapin Sicilian repertoire has proven its mettle against 2700-grandmasters, and you can bet he has more opening surprises under his sleeves.
Leading Sweden’s open team is Grandmaster Nils Grandelius, who brought us The Magnus Queen’s Gambit and Lifetime Repertoires: Classical Slav.
Grandelius built a reputation for playing the same dynamic lines in his repertoires. So tune in to his games to see how his recommendations perform in this tournament.
Here are the players for the open and women’s teams of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
Norway Open Team
Captain: Odin Blikra Vea
- GM Magnus Carlsen
- GM Johan-Sebastian Christiansen
- GM Aryan Tari
- GM Frode Olav Olsen Urkedal
- GM Elham Amar
Norway Women’s Team
Captain: Linus Johansson
- WGM Niina Koskela
- WIM Olga Dolgova
- WIM Viktorija Ni
- WIM Sheila Barth Stanford
- Monika Machlik
Sweden Open Team
Captain: Peter Bergstrom
- GM Nils Grandelius
- GM Erik Blomqvist
- IM Milton Pantzar
- IM Martin Lokander
- GM Tiger Hillarp Persson
Sweden Women’s Team
Captain: Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez
- GM Pia Cramling
- WIM Inna Agrest
- WFM Anna Cramling Bellon
- Margarita Zaritovskaja
- Lavinia Valcu
Denmark Open Team
Captain: Soren Bech Hansen
- GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre
- GM Mads Andersen
- GM Jesper Søndergaard Thybo
- IM Filip Boe Olsen
- FM Jens Albert Ramsdal
Denmark Women’s Team
Captain: Jacob Sylvan
- CM Sandra De Blecourt
- WFM Ellen Kakulidis
- WFM Esmat Susanne Guindy
- Shanne Hedegaard Jakobsen
- Sofie Bech Durrfeld
Check Out These Other Chessable Authors From The Nordic Countries
We couldn’t be more proud to have Carlsen, Christiansen, and Grandelius in our roster of authors. But it’d be remiss not to acknowledge other Nordic authors on Chessable — many of whom have played in the Olympiad, too!
Let’s take a look:
Jon Ludvig Hammer
The 3-time Norwegian champion sports a peak rating of 2705 FIDE, which put him at #40 in the world.
Adventurous openings combined with his universal playstyle helped him beat world champions Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen — the latter in classical chess no less than 3 times!
His repertoire Hammer’s Nimzo-Indian builds on your slight lead in development… to create serious pressure against 1.d4. It brings together the exact same lines he plays in tournaments, with over 15 years of improvements.
Solveig Friberg
Friberg is an adult improver and chess streamer from Norway, known to her fans as Rookie_redhead. She fell in love with chess as she followed the 2021 World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Only 3 years later, she’s raised her rating to 1570 FIDE, and she only keeps climbing.
Taking inspiration from her beginner journey, and bringing her teaching experience into chess, Friberg’s Breaking 1000 gives your openings, middlegames, and endgames a boost. So you can reach that 4-digit rating fast, and gain a solid foundation for future success.
Peter Heine Nielsen
Nielsen’s peak rating of 2700 FIDE and peak world ranking of #37… his 5-time Danish championships… and his 60.1% win rate at the Olympiad are feats the majority of players can only dream of.
But perhaps he will be best remembered as the most successful coach at the world championship level. He has won 9 consecutive matches for the crown — 4 with Vishy Anand from 2007 to 2012, then 5 with Magnus Carlsen from 2013 to 2021.
Who knows? Nielsen might find another protege and continue his streak.
For the time being, Nielsen has busied himself sharing his wealth of practical knowledge with Chessablers.
Through courses like Techniques of Positional Play and Chess Structures: A Grandmaster’s Guide, he reexamines old strategic concepts under the lens of modern chess, and shows you how to successfully apply them in your games.
Lars Schandorff
In the early 90s, Denmark only had 2 grandmasters — Bent Larsen and Nielsen, who we just met. So when Schandorff earned the GM title in 1996, he was overflowing with joy.
Since then, he’s won at least 11 Danish, German, and Swedish team championships. And key to his success in team tournaments is his solid yet ambitious openings.
His iron-clad setups stand firm against the toughest opponents… while staying flexible enough to outplay everyone else.
In his first repertoire on Chessable, Schandorff shows you how to get your game on against 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3… in just 5 universal moves.
Johan Hellsten
Hellsten is the 2006 Swedish chess champion, and one of the country’s most successful players in team tournaments.
Hellsten not only won gold and bronze medals in the 1997 and 2005 European Men’s Team Championship. He also holds a 67.4% win rate for all of the games he’s played in the event.
Among chess improvers, Hellsten is best known for his Mastering Chess Strategy series.
It was dubbed as “rocketship for chess understanding” in the Chessable forums. Thanks, in no small part, to its exhaustive, piece-by-piece breakdown of master-level strategic play.
Can Kabadayi
Kabadayi’s chess journey is an inspiration, especially for people who picked up the game relatively late. He learned chess at age 17. But after only 4 years of serious study, he achieved a rating of 2153 FIDE.
Kabadayi also earned the Candidate Master title and became a FIDE instructor shortly after.
His PhD in cognitive science helps him to maximize the effectiveness of his training sessions…
And he’s blended his training methods into his award-winning Chessable courses. All of which have received 5-star review after 5-star review, because of their emphasis on developing “bread and butter” chess skills (i.e. calculation, exchanging, playing against the pieces, etc.) to perfection.
Conclusion
The 45th Chess Olympiad is shaping to be an intense, must-follow tournament, with the mightiest Norsemen and women riding for Budapest, Hungary in September.
And while they prepare for two weeks of cutthroat chess, our Nordic authors are treating us to massive discounts of up to 40%.
From Bundesliga-level opening repertoires, tactics and strategy guides by the most successful coach, to endgame courses by the world champion - see them all here.
