The Lighthouses of Chess

On 23 January the next chess tour of Michael Negele was due, this time to Wijk aan Zee which once again was completely under the spell of the royal game. Only the last part of the trip was very intricate due to some road construction near Beverwijk ...

Let’s first attend to the editorial meeting with Tony Gillam and Michael Negele at the home of Winifred and Bob van de Velde in Amsterdam. The biography of Paul Felix Schmidt will probably go to press in coming June and will be released in August, so the project is now approaching the final stretch.

  • The kind and patient hosts - Winifred and Bob van de Velde
  • Editorial meeting of the two authors. On screen Jack Collins, on the table Tony’s Mannheim 1914 as well as the elaborations of the authors.

Some details

Title: Paul Felix Schmidt, A Chemist who Played Chess 
Authors: Anthony J Gillam and Michael Negele, with a contribution by Eva Regina Magacs, née Schmidt

Presumably 350 pp., with dust jacket, format 24x17cm (just as Tony’s Mannheim 1914)
Price: ca. 35 GBP; ca. 48 €; ca. 53 US$
KWA members will get a 20% discount if ordered directly from Tony Gillam, but postage has to be added. The book will weigh less than 1 kg, so the postal charges will be moderate.

The authors are still in search of many tournament games of Paul Schmidt. If you have any games from the following list (PDF) which you could provide for this book, we ask you to contact Michael Negele by e-mail [].

Tony Gillam at his best
Tony Gillam at his best

On this occasion two more or less new chess books should be mentioned: Our new US member David Nudelman has kindly sent a copy of his book to Bert Corneth, it is a bibliography of publications on chess and draughts/checkers which have been written in braille and in Russian, and it was already published in 2010 by poezia.us; see the images below, we still link the title page and the imprint.

  • Schachmaty i schaschki by David Mendelevič Nudel'man
  • Back cover

A new book from the pen of Harrie Grondijs has the title Chess Craze Bad, it deals with W.H. Russ aka W.R. Henry and was published 2015 in a small edition of 35 signed and numbered copies only:

  • Frontispiece
  • Colophon and title page

On Sunday in Wijk aan Zee, Tony and Michael happened to meet Ervin Liebert, an Estonian chess historian from Tallinn, together with his grandson Erwin. They had a great talk on the two Pauls (Keres and Schmidt), and Ervin offered his future support for the Schmidt biography. By the way, Ervin’s English is marvelous, and he even speaks German pretty well. There will be a certain chance to introduce the Schmidt biography also in Tallinn in the course of the Paul Keres year 2016.

  • Michael Negele with Ervin Liebert
  • Erwin Liebert and Tony Gillam
  • Ervin Liebert with the Keres issue of KARL, next to him our Dutch member Nico Pos. Michael Negele’s article on Paul Schmidt’s time in Germany (1940-52) will still appear in the coming KARL 1/2016.
  • Ervin Liebert is holding the Keres 2 Euro coin, just issued in Estonia.
  • The Keres 2 € coin

Keres was the only chess player honored this way (naturally apart from Benjamin Franklin), and that for the second time, as there was already a 5 Krooni note with a portrait of Keres (3 series issued: 1991, 1992 and 1994):

After the bad experiences of the 2015 meeting (finally the costs had to be borne by Guy Van Habberney and Bob van de Velde) the KWA board was not willing anymore to hold an official meeting at such a pricey place. So just as in former times, only an informal meeting had been announced to take place on Saturday afternoon in the Café Sonnevanck.

After all 13 members were present in Wijk, Jurgen Stigter, Tony Gillam, Bob van de Velde, Calle Erlandsson, Ron Bleeker, Peter de Jong, Bert Corneth and Michael Negele came to the a.m. Café. Moreover Leo Hovestadt, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Rob Spaans, Alain Fayard and Nico Pos (the latter only on Sunday) have been spotted elsewhere ...

A series of photos from the informal Saturday afternoon is gathered in this gallery.

The Wijk Chess Express
The Wijk Chess Express

We still give some impressions from the tournament hall as well as portraits of the players (in an additional gallery).

  • Previous winners of the Wijk tournament
  • The tournament hall. The "lighthouses of chess" refer to the nice rooks, figuratively arranged in the port of Ijmuiden.
  • Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Calle Erlandsson
  • Not allowed in the playing hall: photoflash, mobiles, loud talking ... (on the right tournament director Jeroen van den Berg)
  • Spectators in every niche
  • Sayings of famous chess masters (further examples in the gallery at the end)
  • Judith Polgar, Chess Queen
  • Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, the only German participant (in the Challengers group)
  • GM John van der Wiel in the commentator room ...
  • ... which was completely full as well.

More photos of the tournament in this gallery.

Photographs © Michael Negele, Wuppertal

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