Dutch Trilogy
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).]
