Ulf Andersson
Encyclopedia
Ulf Andersson is a leading Swedish
chess
player. FIDE awarded him the International Master title in 1970 and the Grandmaster title in 1972 .
list. Tournaments he has won or shared first include the 1969 Swedish Chess Championship
, Göteborg 1971, Dortmund 1973, Camagüez 1974, Cienfuegos 1975, Belgrade
1977, Buenos Aires
1978, Hastings
1978–79, Phillips & Drew
1980, Phillips & Drew 1982, Turin
1982, Wijk aan Zee
1983, Reggio Emilia
1985, Rome
1985, and Rome 1986. He drew a six-game match against former world champion
Mikhail Tal
in 1983, and played top board in the second USSR versus The Rest of The World
Match in 1984. He led the Swedish Chess Olympiad
Team during the 1970s and 1980s, and reached his best personal result in the 23rd Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires 1978, where he finished in third place after Viktor Korchnoi
and Orestes Rodrígues Vargas.
a high percentage of his games against fellow grandmasters . He is renowned as a great player of endgames, especially rook
endgames, and is famous for winning seemingly "unwinnable" endgames, often in very long games . Chess writer Dennis Monokroussos once remarked of Andersson's style, "For most of us, if we're playing a peer and major exchanges
occur, a quick draw is the likely result [...] for Andersson [...] exchanges [are] often not the prelude to a quick draw but the signal that it [is] time for his opponent to start suffering." He is known as one of the toughest players in the world to defeat, but ironically his best-known game is a loss: a crushing defeat in 30 moves to 18-year-old Garry Kasparov
at Tilburg, 1981. After the game he reportedly said, "I will not play against Kasparov any more!" However, in reality they have met in about 20 subsequent tournaments, and close to 75% of their games ended in a draw.
, quickly becoming a grandmaster in that form of chess as well. In 2002, he reached the top of the correspondence chess rating list . His correspondence games tend to be very tactical, which contrasts sharply with his style of play over the board. Very few players in history have been as successful as Andersson at both forms of chess.
c-file and pawns
on a6, b6, d6, and e6, knights
on d7 and f6, bishops
on b7 and e7, a rook
on c8, and kingside castling
), Andersson inflicts upon Anatoly Karpov
the latter's first loss as world champion
:
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player. FIDE awarded him the International Master title in 1970 and the Grandmaster title in 1972 .
Career
At his peak, Andersson reached number four on the FIDE Elo ratingElo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
list. Tournaments he has won or shared first include the 1969 Swedish Chess Championship
Swedish Chess Championship
The first Swedish Champion was Gustaf Nyholm who won two matches against winners of national tournaments: Berndtsson in Göteborg and Löwenborg in Stockholm in 1917. Until 1931 Swedish Chess Championships decided by match play. In the 1930s, Gideon Ståhlberg held the title in spite of results of the...
, Göteborg 1971, Dortmund 1973, Camagüez 1974, Cienfuegos 1975, Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
1977, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
1978, Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1978–79, Phillips & Drew
Phillips & Drew
Phillips & Drew was a large stockbroking partnership and company based in the City of London, England. It was fully acquired by the Union Bank of Switzerland in 1986, which itself merged with the Swiss Bank Corporation in 1998, to become UBS AG....
1980, Phillips & Drew 1982, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
1982, Wijk aan Zee
Corus chess tournament
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament formerly called the Corus chess tournament takes place every year, usually in January, in a small town called Wijk aan Zee, part of the larger Beverwijk in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands...
1983, Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia chess tournament
The Reggio Emilia chess tournament is a chess tournament played in Reggio Emilia, Italy. In Italian the tournament is called Torneo di Capodanno , as it starts just after Christmas and ends on the day of Epiphany...
1985, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
1985, and Rome 1986. He drew a six-game match against former world champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
in 1983, and played top board in the second USSR versus The Rest of The World
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
There have been two chess matches featuring USSR vs. Rest of the World and 1 match Russia vs. Rest of the World. The first two matches were between a team from the USSR and a team of players from the "rest of the world"...
Match in 1984. He led the Swedish Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
Team during the 1970s and 1980s, and reached his best personal result in the 23rd Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires 1978, where he finished in third place after Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
and Orestes Rodrígues Vargas.
Playing style
Andersson is a very solid positional player. He drawsDraw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
a high percentage of his games against fellow grandmasters . He is renowned as a great player of endgames, especially rook
Rook (chess)
A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
endgames, and is famous for winning seemingly "unwinnable" endgames, often in very long games . Chess writer Dennis Monokroussos once remarked of Andersson's style, "For most of us, if we're playing a peer and major exchanges
Exchange (chess)
In the tactics and strategy in the board game of chess, an exchange or trade of chess pieces is series of closely related moves, typically sequential, in which the two players capture each others pieces. Any types of pieces except the kings may possibly be exchanged, i. e. captured in an...
occur, a quick draw is the likely result [...] for Andersson [...] exchanges [are] often not the prelude to a quick draw but the signal that it [is] time for his opponent to start suffering." He is known as one of the toughest players in the world to defeat, but ironically his best-known game is a loss: a crushing defeat in 30 moves to 18-year-old Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
at Tilburg, 1981. After the game he reportedly said, "I will not play against Kasparov any more!" However, in reality they have met in about 20 subsequent tournaments, and close to 75% of their games ended in a draw.
Correspondence play
In recent years, he has begun playing correspondence chessCorrespondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
, quickly becoming a grandmaster in that form of chess as well. In 2002, he reached the top of the correspondence chess rating list . His correspondence games tend to be very tactical, which contrasts sharply with his style of play over the board. Very few players in history have been as successful as Andersson at both forms of chess.
Notable games
In the following game, using the "hedgehog" formation he in part originated (characterized by a half-openHalf-open file
In chess, a half-open file, or semi-open file, is a file with only pawns of one color. The half-open file can provide a line of attack for a player's rook or queen. A half-open file can only be used by the player with no pawns on it....
c-file and pawns
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
on a6, b6, d6, and e6, knights
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
on d7 and f6, bishops
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
on b7 and e7, a rook
Rook (chess)
A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
on c8, and kingside castling
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
), Andersson inflicts upon Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
the latter's first loss as world champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
:
Karpov–Andersson, Milan 1975
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a6 8.Na3 Be7 9.Be2 0-0 10.0-0 b6 11.Be3 Bb7 12.Rc1 Re8 13.Qb3 Nd7 14.Rfd1 Rc8 15.Rd2 Qc7 16.Qd1 Qb8 17.f3 Ba8 18.Qf1 Nce5 19.Nab1 Nf6 20.Kh1 h6 21.Rdd1 Bf8 22.Nd2 Rcd8 23.Qf2 Ned7 24.a3 d5 25.cxd5 exd5 26.exd5 Bd6 27.Nf1 Rxe3 (an exchange sacrifice) 28.Nxe3 Bxh2 29.Nf1 Bf4 30.Rc2 b5 31.Bd3 Nb6 32.Be4 Nc4 33.a4 Re8 34.axb5 axb5 35.Re2 Be5 36.Qc5 Nd6 37.Na2 Ndxe4 38.fxe4 Bd6 39.Qc2 Re5 40.g3 Qe8 41.Rde1 Bb7 42.Kg1 Nh7 43.Nc1 Ng5 44.Nd2 Bb4 45.Kf2 Bxd2 46.Rxd2 Nxe4+ 47.Rxe4 Rxe4 48.Ne2 Bc8 49.Nc3 Re1 50.Ne2 Ra1 51.Rd4 Qd8 52.Qc6 Bd7 53.Qd6 Qe8 54.Qf4 Qc8 55.b4 Bh3 56.Qe4 Bf5 57.Qe3 Qc2 58.g4 Bd7 59.Qe4 Qb3 60.Qd3 Qb2 61.Qe4 Ra8 62.Qe3 Ra2 63.d6 Ra8 64.Re4 Bc6 65.Qd4 Qb1 66.Re7 Qh1 67.Qf4 Qg2+ 68.Ke1 Ra1+ 69.Kd2 Qd5+ 70.Qd4 Ra2+ 71.Kc3 Qf3+ 72.Re3 Ra3+ 73.Kd2 Ra2+ 74.Ke1 Qh1+ 75.Kf2 Qg2+ 76.Ke1 Qh1+ 77.Kf2 Ra1 78.Rc3 Qg2+ 79.Ke3 Qf3+ 0–1