Chess in Reykjavik - Iceland

The legendary World Chess Championship between the then Soviet World Chess Champion Boris Spassky and his challenger, Robert James aka “Bobby” Fischer, took place in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1972.

This cartoon of the legendary match can be found in the Reykjavik Chess Club

The beginnings of chess in Iceland date back to around 1900, when the Reykjavík Chess Club (Taflfélag Reykjavíkur) was founded by a group of chess enthusiasts on October 6, 1900. The father of Icelandic chess has always been the American Daniel Willard Fiske (1831–1904), who brought several chess books and chess sets to Iceland.

He also published a chess book and wrote about chess in Iceland, thereby significantly supporting the existence and promotion of chess. Along with handball, chess was the national sport for a long time, and local newspapers were full of chess columns, which even the first Icelandic grandmaster Friðrik Ólafsson filled with his lines. He also became FIDE President from 1978 to 1982, following Max Euwe.

Friðrik Ólafsson became Iceland's first Grandmaster in 1958 and was FIDE President from 1978–1982.

To this day, chess fans from all over the world, including Garry Kasparov, still make pilgrimages to Reykjavík to visit Bobby Fischer's grave, among other places. Bobby, who was born in Chicago on March 9, 1943, was arrested in Japan in 2004 and sought political asylum in Iceland in March 2005. Although he was granted Icelandic citizenship, a spokesman for the Icelandic Foreign Ministry said this was only a "purely humanitarian gesture" and not support for Fischer's political views, which became increasingly extreme over the years and even anti-Semitic and anti-American towards the end of his life.

Chess Museum in Honor of Bobby Fischer

On January 17, 2008, Bobby Fischer died (at the age of 64, as many squares as there are on the chessboard of his great love!) in Selfoss (almost 9,500 inhabitants), where the Bobby Fischer Center is still maintained today and was open daily from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. between May and September. In the museum itself you can find game notations and a replica of the table at which Spassky and Fischer duelled in 1972. A few hundred meters further on, at the Laugardælir cemetery, you will find the final resting place of the eleventh world chess champion in history.

Thanks to the great popularity of the 1972 World Chess Championship match, chess flourished in Iceland and thus produced the most chess grandmasters per capita in the world: With a population of just under one million, there were about 37 grandmasters(!), making Iceland a clear leader ahead of Monaco (27), Andorra (26) and Armenia (12).

Reykjavík Chess Club

Almost all residents of Iceland learned to play chess at the Reykjavík Chess Club. Today, the chess club, which is open on Tuesdays for “Rapid Tuesdays” and Thursdays for “Blitz Thursdays” from 7:15 p.m. to 10:15 p.m., is located in the same building complex as the pool billiards club & the bar called “Billiardbarinn”, which can be visited daily from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. (and even until 2 a.m. on Saturdays).

Walking into the Reykjavik Chess Club feels like traveling into chess history

The president of the Reykjavík Chess Club is FM Ingvar Thor Johannesson, who not only runs the club, but also served as captain of the Icelandic women's national team at the Chess Olympiad. (Photo: FIDE)

Ingvar Thor is also a bartender in the "Billiardbarinn" mentioned above. During my visit, Ingvar kindly allowed me to take a look into the spacious rooms of the Reykjavík Chess Club, which also the home of the Icelandic Chess Federation in the same place.

President of the Reykjavík Chess Club (on the right in the picture against your reporter at the blitz): FM Ingvar Thor Johannesson

Even before we arrived, we could see a few chess trophies (and seagulls) from the shop window outside, which Reykjavík and Iceland had won in team and national competitions.

Even today, Iceland can hold its own in international competition: twelve active grandmasters (all of whom the club president could name by heart, as he grew up with most of them or played against them several times!), eleven international masters and nineteen FIDE masters are on the country's top 100 Elo list - and that's with just under 400,000 inhabitants!

The Icelandic Chess Federation was founded almost 100 years ago in 1925 and is currently ran by Gunnar Bjornsson

Chess books as far as the eye can see

Annual Reykjavík Open in April

Reykjavík has made a big name for itself with its annual Open and is enjoying increasing popularity – next year it will take place from April 9th to 15th. If you book your flights well in advance and plan your accommodation well with an early bird discount, you can easily get by even in Iceland. In general, prices are very high, as in neighboring Scandinavian countries, because almost everything has to be imported to the island and salaries are high. Taxi prices are very high, but airport shuttle buses are a good way to get to hotels in the city.

The impressive Harpa, playing venue of the Reykjavik Chess Open

Impressive miracles of nature

In April the sun shines for 14 hours a day. In summer it sometimes even shines between 21 and 24 hours! Many Icelanders therefore like to spend their winters, when there is hardly any sun, in warmer areas. Iceland has some impressive natural wonders to offer, rivers flow through deserts, molten lava breaks out of the ice, huge waterfalls, black sand beaches as well as thermal baths and fjords!

Impressive Icelandic landscapes:
top left corner: Seljalandsfoss | top right corner: Sólheimajökull
lower left corner: Reynisdrangar | lower right corner: Kerið

The famous Church of Hallgrimur: Hallgrímskirkja

The marvelous Skógafoss waterfall

There are more than 30 hot springs in Iceland!

Puffin vs. Sheep Chess - a cute chess souvenir

Note that this article was first published originally in German in the December 2024 issue of the German chess magazine Rochade Europa (with additional pictures here).

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