Andersson Ulf (27.06.1951)

Swedish Grandmaster (1972).

Andersson debuted in 1969 when he participated in the World Youth championships and came 5th. Later he was Swedish champion several times  and then never played it again. From 1972-82, he was captain of the Swedish team at the chess Olympiads. His first successful steps in chess were first or shared first places at Gothenburg in 1971, at Dortmund with Hecht and Spassky in 1973, at Camaguey in 1974 and at Cienfuegos in 1975. After the last tournament, he married a Cuban and settled in Cuba for a year working as the national trainer. Then followed his seven strong victories at international tournaments: at Buenos Aires in 1978, at London 1980 where he shared the first prize with Viktor Korchnoi and Antony Miles, at Johannesburg in 1981, where he was followed by Robert Hubner and Viktor Korchnoi; in 1982 at London and Turin equal with Anatoly Karpov, at Wijk aan Zee in 1983 and at Reggio Emilia in 1985-6 equal with Ljudomir Ljubojevic and Oleg Romanishin. In 1975 he played a match with Bent Larsen in Stockholm and won it with the score 5½-2½, the same year he was defeated by Mikhail Tal 3½-4½. In the match with Lubomir Kavalek at Washington in 1978 he lost by a score of 1½-4½. From the middle of the 1970’s he participated in World Championship tournaments. Playing in Interzonal tournaments he was 8th in 1976 at Biel, 3rd in 1982 at Moscow, 7th in 1985 at Biel and 6th in 1987 at Sirak. He performed well from 1970-86 taking part and winning strong tournaments at Stockholm, Oslo (1971), Capablanca Memorial (1974,1975), at Rio in 1975, at Belgrade he was equal first with Milan Matulovic and Jan Smejkal in 1977, he came first at Buenos Aires and Malgrat de Mar-Calela in 1978, was the winner of Hastings tournaments in 1978/79, 1980/81, in 1979/80 shared first prize with John Nunn, at Munich in 1979 he shared the 1-5th place with Boris Spassky, Yury Balashov, Robert Hubner, won tournaments in Rome in 1985 and in 1986 he was equal with Gyula Sax. He also came equal first with first Miles and Korchnoi at London in 1980, in 1981 at Buenos Aires with Ljubojevic and  Larsen, in 1983 at Malmo with Tal. In individual matches, he drew a six-game match with Tal M. in 1983, and in 1985 lost to Garry Kasparov by the score 2:4, he played with Anatoly Karpov again in 1989 at Marostica and lost by a score of 2½-1½. In 1993, he played two matches with Fernand Hellers: the first at Eksjo where he lost 3½-2½ and the second at Stockholm in which Andersson won by a score of 2½-1½. His play is characterized by smart positional manoeuvres, high endgame techniques, and inventive defense. From 400 games with strong rivals, he drew some 74% of them and won 10% and lost 16%. His last achievements were the first place at San Sebastian, Benidorm in 1994; at Malmöe in 1995; at Ter Apel, Prague in 1996, at Athens ECU Rapid, Bar in 1997.

Peak rating: 2655 in 1997. In 1996, he set a world record by playing 310 boards simultaneously, winning 268, drawing 40, and losing 2 in 15 hours and 23 minutes.

Ulf was also a strong correspondence Grandmaster, a winner of many tournaments. In 2002, he was the best world-ranked correspondence player with an ELO of 2741.