Dutch Treat
by Hans Ree

Mayors

When it was recently announced that Mayor Faber of the Dutch
town of Hoogeveen was to join the Board of the Royal Dutch
Chess Federation, my first thought was: "Does he know what he is
in for? Mayors and chess, the combination spells disaster." Silly
thought, I admit. It was because one week earlier I had visited the
Amber rapid tournament in Monaco and there I had had an
interesting conversation about French mayors who in the past had
shown a special love for chess. I was speaking with some Dutch
chess lovers who made their home on the French Mediterranean
coast. Pleasant company they were. "Whoever arrives from the
Netherlands has, by definition, been pillaged by Dutch taxes, so
don't even think about paying the bill," they said. Our talk had
given me the impression that chess loving mayors were destined
for a bad end.

Michel Mouillot, mayor of Cannes, had been a pillar of the yearly
Festival of Games, of which a chess tournament always was the
most important part. I remember well that in 1990 I had the
privilege of being awarded a prize from him. A few years later
Mouillot finished up behind prison bars because of financial
mischief.

Nearby, Mayor Jacques Medecin ruled over Nice until 1990. He
had been mayor for a long time, since 1966, and a member of a
dynasty - his father Jean had been mayor before him since 1928.
During the reign of Jacques in 1974 Nice organised the chess
olympiad, the biggest chess event ever played in France. It was
about that time that the English writer Graham Greene, a resident
of the Mediterranean coast, wrote the pamphlet "J'accuse" (I
accuse), a sharp attack on the way Medecin combined business,
politics and good relations with the French underworld.

It took some time for Greene's point to sink in, but in 1990
Medecin felt forced to give up his office and flee to Uruguay. It
was all in vain; he was extradited to France and was in prison for
some years.

Michel Noir, mayor of Lyon, was a chess lover par excellence and
for some time he was considered in French politics a presidential
candidate. In 1990 Noir brought the second leg of the
Kasparov-Karpov match to Lyon. He also made the Lyon team the
strongest in the French League by providing the finances to attract
top foreign players. Alas, this mayor also came to a bad end. In
1996 he was fined and sentenced to a provisional prison term as a
result of corruption.

The French are lucky that they still have Mayor Gouvart of
Capelle-la- Grande. This is a small industrial town of 9000
inhabitants near Dunkirk, close to the Belgian border. Here every
year the strongest open tournament in the world is played. This
year there were 637 players, among them 93 grandmasters.

One gets the impression that Capelle-la-Grande is run as a family
business. Mayor Roger Gouvart is a communist, but represents a
local political party devoted to the interests of the town. For a long
time he had been president of the local trade union, a function that
is now held by one of his sons. Another son, Michel Gouvart, also
a prominent trade unionist, organises the annual chess tournament.

The communist background of the organisers comes out in the
egalitarian spirit in which the tournament is run. Financial
conditions for all grandmasters and international masters are
practically the same: food, lodging and a minimal starting fee.
There also seems to be a special connection with players from
countries of the former Soviet Union, who always come to the
tournament in droves, sometimes being picked up in their
hometowns and brought in by special buses, courtesy of
Capelle-la-Grande.

The municipality has guaranteed the existence of the tournament
till 2004. Let us pray that nothing unpleasant will happen to Mayor
Gouvart before that time.

This year the tournament was won by Igor Glek, a Russian
grandmaster who lives in Germany. As will be seen, he is an expert
in the MacCutcheon variation of the French. That stood him in
good stead, as Glek wrote in the French magazine Europe Echecs,
in 1988 when he was doing his military service in Russia. At that
time Anatoly Karpov was playing for the Red Army team. Karpov
asked Glek for advice about what to play with white against the
MacCutheon. Glek compiled a small file on the line that starts with
5. e4xd5, which of course is not a refutation of the MacCutcheon,
but very safe and, according to Glek, gives white good prospects
for a minimal positional advantage. "Just what I needed," Karpov
said. Glek was rewarded with two weeks extra leave from military
service. The world has changed since then and nowadays Karpov
has to pay his helpers.

White: Spraggett (Canada) Black: Glek, Capelle-la Grande 1998.
1. e2-e4 e7-e6 2. d2-d4 d7-d5 3. Nb1-c3 Ng8-f6 4. Bc1-g5 Bf8-b4
5. e4-e5 h7-h6 6. Bg5-d2 Bb4xc3 7. b2xc3 Nf6-e4 8. Qd1-g4
g7-g6 9. Bf1-d3 Ne4xd2 10. Ke1xd2 c7-c5 11. Qg4-f4 Bc8-d7
This is probably better than the natural 11...Nc6. Glek wants to put
his knight on d7 to protect f6, but first he wants to develop his
bishop. 12. Ng1-f3 Bd7-c6 13. h2-h4 Nb8-d7 14. Rh1-h3 A
standard move in this line, but if it does not lead to an attack the
rook is badly out of play. 14...Qd8-e7 15. d4xc5 0-0-0 16. Nf3-d4
Nd7xc5 17. Ra1-b1 Qe7-c7 18. Qf4-f6 Rh8-f8 19. f2-f4 To be
followed up by 20. h5, and black's kingside pawns will fall. But in
fact black's attack against the white king comes first and white's
queen will be totally out of play for the rest of the game.
19...Nc5-e4+ 20. Bd3xe4 d5xe4 Now the possibility of 21...Rxd4+
has to be reckoned with. 21. Rb1-b4 Rd8-d7 22. Kd2-c1 Rf8-d8
23. a2-a3 a7-a5 According to Glek, he could have had a winning
attack with 23...Qa5 24. Kb2 Qc5 25. Nxc6 bxc6 26. Rxe4 a5. 24.
Rb4-c4 Qc7-b6 25. Rh3-e3 Kc8-b8 26. Re3-e1 White was in time
trouble. Again according to Glek, 26. Nxc6+ bxc6 27. Rd4 was
white's only chance. 26...Bc6-d5 After this black's attack plays
itself. 27. Rc4-a4 Rd8-c8 28. Kc1-d2 Qb6-b2 29. Re1-e3 (See
Diagram)

 29...Bd5-b3! 30. Ra4xa5 Rd7xd4+ White resigned.

From the same tournament, a light and tasty gamelet won by one of
the best young Dutch players.

White Karpatchev (Russia) - black De Vreugt 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2.
c2-c3 e7-e5 3. Ng1-f3 Nb8-c6 4. Bf1-c4 Qd8-c7 5. 0-0 Bf8-e7 6.
d2-d3 Ng8-f6 7. Nf3-g5 0-0 8. f2-f4 h7-h6 9. Ng5-f3 e5xf4 10.
Nf3-h4 g7-g5 11. Nh4-f5 d7-d5 12. Nf5xh6+ Kg8-g7 13. e4xd5
Kg7xh6 14. d5xc6 Kh6-g7 15. Nb1-d2 Rf8-h8 16. Qd1-e1 Be7-d6
17. Nd2-e4 Nf6xe4 18. d3xe4 Bc8-g4 19. g2-g3 Playing this move
white must have overlooked something. 19...f4-f3 20. Bc1xg5 (See
Diagram)

20...Rh8xh2 21. Kg1xh2 Bd6xg3+ White resigned.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
"NRC-Handelsblad" April 18, 1998. 
Copyright 1998 Hans Ree. All Rights Reserved.