Who is the best chess player in Sweden?

On the list

This is what the top of Sweden's active players looked like in November 2026. Active means at least one rated game in the past year.

The list has 5,799 players from Sweden, 2,998 of them active. 25 are grandmasters, 19 of them active.

The Swedish champion

Edvin Trost, 19, became Swedish champion in Jönköping in 2026. He and Jung Min Seo each scored 6 out of 9 in the championship section. In the playoff the rapid games ended 1–1, and Trost then won the blitz decider 2–0. It was his first time in the section.

Among women

Pia Cramling, born in 1963, has the highest rating of the Swedish women on the list. In 1992 she became the first Swedish woman to earn the grandmaster title, and on the November 2026 list she is still the only one. She was the top-rated woman in the world in January 1984.

All time

The best of all time is a matter of opinion, but a few facts can be listed. Gideon Ståhlberg was one of the 27 players who received FIDE's first grandmaster titles in 1950, and he played in the Candidates Tournaments of 1950 and 1953. No Swede has gone that far in the race for the open world title since.

Ulf Andersson was fourth on FIDE's world list in January 1983. Nils Grandelius reached 2694 in March 2019, the same month he won silver at the European Championship. More of them are among the great Swedish players, and Swedish chess has its own section in the history of chess.