Dutch Treat 
by Hans Ree

Father and Son

It was in one of the last rounds of this year's Dutch championship.
Karel van der Weide, one of the outsiders, was playing Ivan
Sokolov, the Bosnian grandmaster who is living in the
Netherlands. Sokolov was leading the tournament, but now he was
a pawn down and he had a miserable position. Earlier in the game
he had been two pawns down though. Van der Weide was clearly
still winning, but it was obvious that he had lost the right track. Jan
Timman, one of Sokolov's rivals for first place, had won his game
an hour earlier. I went to him and asked: "You remember that
championship where we shared second place?" Of course he did.
And he had an inkling of what I was going to say about it.

The Dutch championship of 1979. In the second round Gert
Ligterink, who was to become champion that year, played against
Piet van der Weide, the father of the afore-named Karel. There was
a terrible time scramble in which many a piece was inadvertently
lost. When the smoke cleared, Piet van der Weide was a bishop up.
Ligterink had to resign, but it was not his move. After any normal
move that Van der Weide would make, moving his bishop, moving
his king, to whatever square he fancied, Ligterink would in fact
have resigned.

But first Van der Weide went to get a cup of coffee, to calm his
nerves. When he came back at the board his flag was down, which
he had expected; but in the meantime it had also turned out -
something which he had not expected - that he had only made
thirty-nine moves instead of the required forty. He had lost on
time.

He took it as a man. "A pity, but such things can happen," he said
and sportingly he shook hands with the opponent. The other
players in the tournament didn't think at all that this was one of
these things that are bound to happen now and then. "Why for
heaven's sake didn't you make an arbitrary extra move before you
went for a coffee, or even two, to be quite sure?"

This had indeed been considered by Piet, but he had rejected this
course of action. But why? He explained his decision with the
parable of the inexperienced air traveler.

"You always see these inexperienced travelers at airports who
arrive much too early, just to be sure and because you never know.
And then they have to hang around there for hours. The
experienced traveler arrives on time, but not too early. And so I
thought that an experienced chessplayer has to make forty moves
before the time control, and not nervously one extra to be quite
sure."

All well and good, but in this way the experienced traveler had
helped a dangerous rival of ours to an extra point. How important
that would be, only became clear at the end of the tournament. It
was exactly by this one point that Ligterink was ahead of Timman
and me. Otherwise the three of us would have shared first place.

It had happened long ago, but of course I didn't have to tell
Timman all this. And in fact he had anticipated what I actually did
say to him: "What the father did to us then, the son will do to you
now." Timman laughed wryly. "Well, at least he will not lose this
game. Good heavens, imagine that!" But he did. And in the end,
just as in 1979, Timman finished one point behind the champion,
in this case Ivan Sokolov.

White: Kf2, Re5, Rh1, Ng4; pawns - a2, b3, c4, d4, f3, h3 
Black: Kb7, Rg5, Rh5, Bf5; pawns - a6, b6, c6, c7, f4

White: Van der Weide Black: Sokolov, Position after black's 45th
move. White has a pawn more, his pawn structure on the queenside
is better than black's and black's three pieces on the kingside can
hardly make a move. After 46. Nf6 black would have to answer
46...Rh4, because 46...Rh6 47. h4 Rgg6 48. Rxf5 Rxf6 49. Rxf6
Rxf6 50. h5 would be hopeless for black. But then, after 46. Nf6
Rh4, black would be absolutely unable to move his pieces, except
for his king, and white would open a second front at his leisure
against the black king with b4 and c5, which would easily decide.
In the game however followed: 46. Kf2-g2 Rg5-g8 47. Kg2-f2
Rg8-g6 Now it is not so easy anymore, because black's rook is
mobile, but still 48. c5 would be promising. But white was tired
and blunders a pawn. 48. Rh1-h2 Rg6-d6 49. Kf2-e1 Rd6xd4 50.
Rh2-e2 Rd4-d6 Now it is black who will play for a win. 51. Ng4-f2
Rd6-h6 52. Ke1-d2 c6-c5 53. a2-a4 a6-a5 54. Kd2-c3 Rh6-g6 Now
55. Ng4 would be quite sufficient to hold the draw, because
55...Bxg4 56. hxg4 Rh3 57. Rf2 Rxg4 58. Rf5 gives black nothing.
55. Nf2-d3 Bf5xd3 56. Kc3xd3 Rh5xh3 And even here white
would have excellent drawing chances after 57. Rf2 Rd6+ 58. Kc3
57. Kd3-e4 Rg6-d6 58. Re2-f2 Rd6-d4+ 59. Ke4-f5 Rh3-h5+ But it
had to be, white is losing a rook and resigned. Heart-breaking, not
only for Van der Weide. This was round nine. One round earlier,
strange things had happened also. 

White: Kh1, Qd2, Rd1,Re1, Nb3, Ne4, Be3,Bf1; pawns - a2, b2,
c2, f3, g2, h2 
Black: Kg8, Qe7, Rd8,Rf8, Ne5, Nf4,Bb7, Bg7; pawns - a7, b6,
d6, e6, g4, h6

White: Reinderman Black: Van Wely, Position after white's 24th
move. Black has built up a strong attack. But both players seem to
have gone for a nap at this stage and overlooked that black can win
here immediately with 24...Nxg2! followed by 25...gxf3.
24...Ne5-g6 25. g2-g3 Nf4-g2 was played. The attack on his knight
has awakened black and now he sees it. One move earlier, with a
white pawn on g2 and black's knight still on e5, this would have
been much stronger of course. 26. Bf1xg2 g4xf3 27. Bg2xf3
Rf8xf3 28. Be3xh6 Bg7xb2 29. Kh1-g1 Ng6-e5 30. Bh6-g5
Qe7-h7 31. Bg5xd8 Rf3xg3+ One rook sacrifice after another, it's
beautiful for sure, but its correctness is another matter. Black
remains material down. 32. h2xg3 Ne5-f3+ 33. Kg1-f2 Nf3xd2 34.
Nb3xd2 d6-d5 35. Ne4-d6 Qh7-h2+ 36. Kf2-f3 Bb7-a6 37. Re1xe6
Bb2-c3 38. Re6-e8+ Kg8-h7 39. Re8-e7+ Kh7-g6 40. Re7-e6+
Kg6-h7 Time control made, time for deep thinking. During and
after the game man and computer working harmoniously together
found that white would have a winning attack after 41. Rde1. After
41...Bxd2 black would be mated, so the crucial variations start with
41...Qxd2. But it has to be said that these variations are
complicated. During the game white thought he would only have a
draw in this case. 41. Nd2-f1 So he tries to keep all his material,
but does not succeed. 41...Qh2-h5+ 42. g3-g4 Qh5-h1+ 43. Kf3-f2
Ba6xf1 44. Rd1xf1 Qh1-h2+ 45. Kf2-e3 Again he disdains the
draw, otherwise he would have forced it with 45. Kf3 Qh3+ 46.
Kf2 Bd4+ 47. Ke1. 45...Qh2-g3+ 46. Rf1-f3 d5-d4+ 47. Ke3-d3
Qg3xf3+ 48. Kd3-c4 Qf3-f1+ The position is still quite unclear,
but black is better now. 49. Kc4-d5 d4-d3 50. Re6-e7+ Bc3-g7 51.
c2xd3 Qf1xd3+ 52. Kd5-c6 Qd3-f3+ 53. Kc6-c7 Qf3-f4 54.
Kc7-c6 Qf4-f6 55. Kc6-d7 Qf6-d4 56. Kd7-c6 Qd4-c5+ 57.
Kc6-d7 Qc5-d5 58. Kd7-c7 Kh7-g6 59. Kc7-d7 Bg7-f8 60.
Re7-e6+ Kg6-g7 61. Bd8-f6+ Kg7-g8 62. g4-g5 b6-b5 63. Bf6-e5
Bf8xd6 64. Be5xd6 b5-b4 65. g5-g6 Qd5xa2 66. Bd6-e5 Qa2-d5+
67. Kd7-e7 b4-b3 68. Ke7-f6 Qd5-d8+ 69. Kf6-f5 Qd8-d7 70.
Kf5-f6 b3-b2 71. Be5xb2 Qd7-g7+ 72. Kf6-f5 Qg7xb2 73.
Re6-e8+ Kg8-g7 74. Re8-e7+ Kg7-f8 75. Re7-f7+ Kf8-g8 76.
Rf7-d7 Qb2-b5+ 77. Kf5-e6 Qb5xd7+ 78. Ke6xd7 a7-a5 White
resigned.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
"NRC-Handelsblad" July 4, 1998. Copyright 1998 Hans Ree, All
Rights Reserved. 