Bók um Svein Johannessen

Út er komin bók um norska alþjóðlega meistarann Svein Johannessen (1937-2007) sem er mörgum af eldri kynslóðum skákmanna vel kunnugur. Bókin er skrifuð af Øystein Brekke sem hefur m.a. skrifað bækurnar "Sjakkens Holmenkollen, Gausdalsjakk 1970-1996" og "Nordisk sjakk i 100 år" en sú síðasta er fróðleg og skemmtileg yfirlestrar að mati ritstjóra.  Bragi Kristjánsson aðstoðaði höfund við efnisöflun frá Íslandi.

Nánar kynning og hvernig á að panta bókina má finna í neðangreindum texta frá höfundi.

 I just want to inform you that in this week I have published the book
"Sjakkmesteren Svein Johannessen", in Norwegian language and written by
myself.

This is a book on the Norwegian chess master Svein Johannessen
(17.10.1937 - 27.112007) who was the strongest chess player of his country
before Simen Agdestein and Magnus Carlsen.

Johannessen was the first Norwegian player who faced most of the top players
of his time, including exciting games with the world champions Smyslov, Tal,
Petrosjan, Spassky and Fischer. In his first tournament abroad, the World
Junior championship of 1955, he was awarded a brilliancy prize for his game
against Schweber of Argentine. Old Tartakower called this possibly the most
beautiful game of recent years.
In the Moscow olympiad of 1956 Johannessen's game against IM Muhring
(NL) was given high praise from Petrosian and Flohr, who annotated it in
Sovjetskij Sport and the tournament book respectively.
The book also contains the game Johannessen - Tal from the friendly match
played in Oslo of April 1956 between the Soviets Kotov, Tal and Korchnoi and
six Norwegian players to prepare for the Moscow olympiad.
This game is given in none of the databases I know, and not in the
collections of Tal's games. The game was a draw after 67 moves, when
Johannessen missed the win a couple of times.
In 1959 Johannessen was the first Norwegian to become the Nordic champion,
when he won the championship held in Örebro, ahead of Ståhlberg. Neither
this tournament nor the Stockholm new year tournament 1959-60 (1-2 Kotov and
Martin Johansson 7, Keres 6 1/2, Johannessen 6, Ståhlberg 4 1/2 etc) are
covered by the wellknown databases.
Later Johannessen played first board for Norway in the six consecutive chess
olympiads 1960 - 70. He was in IM in 1961 after the zonal tournament of
Marianske Lazne (1 Olafsson, 2 Filip, 3 Uhlmann, 4 Johannessen), and both on
this occasion and in Beverwijk 1965 he missed some chances to become a
Grandmaster.
He never really became the world star as was expected from his early play
and results. His ambitions were probably not high enough, and during the 50s
and 60s chess opportunities in Norway were very modest.
Svein Johannessen was important for the development of a higher chess level
in Norway during the next decades, and he was admired for his always
exemplary sportmanship at the chess board.

The book is bound, with 264 pages, and it is probably the most complete
Nordic chess biography published. It contains 162 all annotated games of
which 70 are not given in the main databases, and 8-10 of them are published
for the first time. Also some cross tables and lists of results are fresh
new.

The front page picture is from the Stockholm tournament 1959-60:
Johannessen playing the King's gambit 3 Nc3 against Bengt Hörberg, with
Kotov and Keres as spectators. The variation was probably played as a
tribute to his great hero Keres, who played this variation himself in a few
early correspondance games. The game and the story... in the book.

Sjakkmesteren Svein Johannessen
Norsk Sjakkforlag 2009
Øystein Brekke
ISBN 978-82-90779-05-9
NOK 240,00 (27 Euro)

In the same format and series of chess historic books I earlier published
"Sjakkens Holmenkollen, Gausdalsjakk 1970-1996" (1997) and "Nordisk sjakk i
100 år" (1999).

Best regards
Øystein Brekke

Norsk Sjakkforlag Sjakkbutikken
www.sjakkbutikken.no
tel [phone]