By this contribution we would like to recall that
four years ago (2002-11-30) a first meeting of the "Amsterdam Group"
took place, the signal for a venture which should develop something later
to the Ken Whyld Association. So we welcome the opportunity of presenting
here three of our Dutch members who could recently draw special attention
to themselves – naturally for different reasons.
Certainly Geurt Gijssen from Nijmegen has recently been
most in the limelight of the chess public, the arbiter of the world championship
match Kramnik – Topalow in Elista had undertaken a job really not
so easy. Of course G.G. is such a prominent in the chess scene that a
further introduction will be superfluous, particularly as we recorded
some cornerstones of his life in our birthday column (especially August
2004). But currently Geurt Gijssen is represented in the German magazine
SCHACH (No. 12/2006, p. 64!) where he answers the traditional
chess questions on two pages – inevitable that he touches on the
Elista events now and then but quite a few things go far beyond chess
thinking. At first glance it seems to be not so surprising that Geurt
Gijssen was appointed honorary member of the Nijmegen chess organization
Strijdt Met Beleid (founded
1848-12-10!), more likely if you hear that he was just the third chess
player who was given this honour (the first was Adolf Anderssen in 1858!).
But after the Elista match our undaunted Geurt Gijssen has already tackled
new tasks, among other things the Remco Heite chess tournament which brings
us directly to our second member.
Till now Remco Heite from Wolvega (Friesland) was principally
known to us as a collector, an article by Minze bij de Weg in the Dutch
schaakMagazine having the title "We
willen het toernooi met het paard worden" ["We want to be the
tournament with the horse"] has suddenly broadened our knowledge.
We not only learn from it that Remco Heite is a "passionate collector
of chess literature" and that among his "chess curiosities"
there is even a chess set from Alekhine’s estate [you have to read
yourself in the above article how Remco came into possession of this rarity
...]; but also that Remco Heite has been mayor of Weststellingwerf for
16 years, a position he held till 2005. On the occasion of his departure
he didn't only get a trip to the Moscow Aeroflot tournament as a "leaving
present" but also a tournament dedicated personally to him –
the Remco Heite chess tournament will be held now at
two-year intervals in Wolvega (sponsored by the municipality as well as
by the local industry and commerce). The first edition of this tournament
(Nov. 24 – 26, 2006) has just been finished, there were 6 competitors
in the invitational tournament (Jussupow, Hübner, Hort, Timman, van
Wely and Werle) and Loek van Wely won a commanding victory – you
will find further details at the Dutch website;
in addition to the invitational tournament there was also an Open (9 rounds,
Swiss system) and a school tournament.
Particular originality is lent to the invitational tournament by the first
prize as apart from the usual prize money a bonus is given to acquire
a real horse. (Wolvega is a centre of equestrian sport and has the most
modern and fastest trotting course in Europe.) Consequently Loek van Wely
is now the proud owner of a thoroughbred trotter! (See also this page.)
We are pleased to welcome the third in our trio – chess friend and
collector Joop Jansen from Oostrum: we recently heard
of him that he achieved the SIM title in correspondence chess. Playing
in the Joel Adler Memorial he could draw his game against
the Czech player Zdenek Nývlt, it was a "sea serpent"
of exactly 100 moves! So he had an intermediate score of 7 out of 11 (with
still 3 ongoing games) and therefore met the SIM norm of 7 out of 14 applying
to this tournament. Already before Joop had achieved a SIM norm, namely
at board 2 in the jubilee team tournament of the Dutch club Rochade 5171,
scoring 7.5 points there.
We have to add that Joop missed a third SIM norm in the same playing period,
in the French invitational tournament Jacques Jaudran Memorial B actually:
some time he grew weary of the haggling of his Russian opponent Chigishev
and finally agreed to a draw, in consequence of which missing the norm.
Congratulations to Joop Jansen on this success! –
here you
can play over the "crazy" game which brought him the title.
[According to Nol van’t Riet’s report
(rtf-file).]
Joop
Jansen in the Max Euwe-Centrum
(November 2006) |
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