Obituary of Pierre Van Craenenbroeck

Pierre Van Craenenbroeck, one of our senior members, passed away on November 24, aged 79. He had been suffering since the beginning of this year from a rare cancer which proved to be untreatable.

Pierre was the driving force behind the 14 youth chess tournaments which were organized in Schilde, Belgium, between 1965 and 1982. He was also a strong chess player and later in life a big billiards fan. After giving up OTB play, he became a great enthusiast of chess problems.

Over the years, Pierre also amassed a considerable chess book collection: at one point (around 2005), he possessed more than 5000 titles. He then gradually started to sell off his collection, a process which gave him great joy as he was in the habit in collating and reading many of his chess jewels before he sold them to collectors all over the globe.

His chess club in Schilde was named after Boris Spassky, the 10th World Chess Champion, who visited Pierre whenever he came to Belgium, dining together and sharing stories about their common love of chess books and auctions, as well as the 1955 World Youth Championship which Spassky won in Antwerp.