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Stefán Kristjánsson

Icelandic chess player (1982-2018)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ2067750 ↗
Source-derived summary

Stefán Kristjánsson (8 December 1982 – 28 February 2018) was an Icelandic chess grandmaster and professional poker player.

Stefán began playing chess at the age of 11 and earned his international master title in 2002, at age 19. He won the Reykjavík Chess Championship twice, in 2002 and 2006. He achieved the required norms for his grandmaster title by 2006 and was awarded the title in 2011, after reaching a rating of 2500. He represented Iceland at five Chess Olympiads and four European Team Chess Championships.

Stefán did not compete regularly after attaining his grandmaster title. Outside of chess, he was also a successful poker player and gained fame in the Icelandic poker community. He died in 2018 at the age of 35, becoming the first Icelandic grandmaster to die.

Chess career

Stefán was born on 8 December 1982 in Reykjavík. He began playing chess at the relatively late age of 11, at his elementary school Melaskóli.

Editorial summary

“Stefán Kristjánsson” enters the record as icelandic chess player (1982-2018). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Stefán, Kristjánsson and Icelandic can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1982, 2018, 2002, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1982-12-08. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Stefán, Kristjánsson and Icelandic.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Stefán Kristjánsson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Stefán, Kristjánsson and Icelandic provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2067750. VIAF identifies the subject as 4544152139988711100009. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 2018, 2002 and 2006.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Stefán Kristjánsson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Stefán Kristjánsson primary sources, Stefán Kristjánsson archive and Stefán research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Stefán Kristjánsson”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Stefán Kristjánsson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.