The Nordic Chess Championship (''Nordiska Schackkongressen'') is a biennal

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

tournament which determines the champion of the

Nordic countries The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; literal translation, lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmar ...

. The first edition took place in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

in 1897.

History

The winners in the Nordic Championship in 1934 and 1936,

Aron Nimzowitsch Aron Nimzowitsch ( lv, Ārons Nimcovičs, russian: Аро́н Иса́евич Нимцо́вич, ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimz ...

and

Erik Lundin Erik Ruben Lundin (2 July 1904 – 5 December 1988) was a Swedish chess master. In 1928, he won in Oslo, took 5th in Helsingborg, tied for 2nd-3rd in Stockholm (''Quadrangular'', Richard Réti won). In 1929, he took 2nd in Göteborg (Nordic Che ...

, got the ''Nordiske kongresmestre'' title, as the champion of 1930, Erik Andersen, defended his title with 3–3 against

Gideon Ståhlberg Anders Gideon Tom Ståhlberg (26 January 1908 – 26 May 1967) was a Swedish chess player. He was among the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950. He won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927, became N ...

at Copenhagen 1934 and lost it by 2½–3½ against Erik Lundin at Copenhagen 1937. Several of the Nordic Championship have been arranged as part of an open tournament, where the best placed player from a Nordic country becomes Nordic champion even if that person did not win the event. For example, the Nordic Champion of 2011, Jon Ludvig Hammer, finished fifth in the

Reykjavik Open The Reykjavik Open is an annual chess tournament that takes place in the capital city of Iceland. It was held every two years up to 2008, currently it runs annually. The first edition was held in 1964 and was won by Mikhail Tal with a score of 12.5 ...

that doubled as the Nordic Championship since the four players who finished ahead of him were from Ukraine, the Netherlands, and Poland and were thus ineligible for the Nordic Champion title.

Winners

References

{{Inter-Nordic competitions Supranational chess championships Chess in Denmark Chess in Finland Chess in Iceland Chess in Norway Chess in Sweden 1897 in chess Chess in Europe Inter-Nordic sports competitions