Dutch Treat 
by Hans Ree

Samurai

"Lonesome like a tiger in the jungle is the samurai." Occasionally
this saying occurs to me and it always makes me smile. Originally
it was the motto of a film by the French director Jean-Pierre
Melville, "The Samurai," with Alain Delon playing the leading
part. Then it was taken up by Hein Donner to describe himself.
From Cuba he had brought an enormous and magnificent hat.
When he wore it he felt like a samurai, but at the same time he
knew that everyone who saw him wearing it burst out laughing.
Whenever I murmur that saying about the tiger in the jungle, I see
Hein with that hat. Last year Donner's book "The King" came out
in English. The English reviewers had to wait for ten years after
the original Dutch edition came out, but they didn't mind and were
appreciative of what they got, which warms the heart of us Dutch,
because it is always nice to see your own opinions shared by
foreign authorities.

The samurai is often depicted as a tragic character who holds a
strong system of ethics and has formidable skills, but lives in a
time where his ethics are considered irrelevant and his
sword-fighting skills are not needed anymore. Chessplayers
sometimes fear that they will be in the same position. I once
dreamed that I was playing in an important tournament and did not
remember how the pieces moved. When I woke up, I thought that
in reality I was afraid of the opposite, that I would know how the
pieces moved, but that there would not be important tournaments
organized anymore. Later I realized that this had been a too
complicated explanation, and that in fact the dream had been quite
realistic. No lack of important tournaments in our times.

In the reports about the Fontys tournament in the Dutch town
Tilburg I read how Viktor Kortchnoi raged against the young
opponents who had beaten him. Anand he called a coward. With
Kramnik he didn't want to speak, because Kramnik in his opinion
had been playing for tricks. In fact it seemed as if Kortchnoi had
not really wanted to speak to anyone, just sitting in the pressroom
growling to no one in particular. Lonesome like a tiger in the
jungle...I had to smile.

But surely not to make fun of Kortchnoi. At his ripe age he acts out
what other chessplayers think after a painful loss but keep to
themselves. "Such insolence crying to Heaven, this revolting ass
winning against me of all people, with his miserable 1. Nf3!"
About Nimzowitsch it has been written that once after a defeat he
jumped on a table in the tournament room and shouted: "Against
this idiot I had to lose!"

The last round of the Fontys tournament was on a Wednesday and
already on Thursday Loek van Wely and Jeroen Piket were leaving
for their next tournament, a zonal in Andorra. "On Saturday I'll
know if I am still alive," said Piket to a Dutch newspaper. By then
the first round would have been played. It really was a tough
schedule for Van Wely and Piket, the olympiad in Elista, the
mightily strong Fontys tournament and then the zonal, one right
after another.

A few days earlier I had met Paul van der Sterren by accident in
Amsterdam. He too was taking part in the Andorra zonal. As we
know, the World Championship for which this zonal was a
qualifier, originally was to be held in December of this year in Las
Vegas. Then in accordance with Karpov's wishes, it was
rescheduled to January 1999 and at the time there were rumors that
it would be played in April or June 1999, still in Las Vegas. I had
little confidence in these rumors as did Paul.

"I suppose it will be Elista at the end of 1999," he said. "It is a pity,
because I really enjoyed the prospect of Las Vegas. But this messy
situation where you never know what is in store for you, has its
charms too. It sort of fits the chessworld, I think." Cheerfully he
embarked on his trip to Andorra, together with his Dutch comrades
(apart from Piket and Van Wely) Nijboer, Reinderman and Van
den Doel. The seventh Dutch samurai was Jan Timman, but he
didn't have to go to Andorra, because he'll probably have a place in
the World Championship anyway. Eventually Nijboer and
Reinderman qualified, together with the English Speelman and
Miles, Bauer from France and Magem from Spain.

Kortchnoi did not belong to this zone; in fact he had qualified
already earlier this year, but had it been different, I am sure that at
the final day of this Fontys tournament that had been rather
miserable for him, Viktor the Indefatigable would have packed his
bags joyfully for the next adventure, travelling on to Andorra, to
teach the young and weak-minded generation once again sternly
how things are and should be.

White: Piket Black: Lautier, Fontys, fifth round. 1. d2-d4 Ng8-f6
2. c2-c4 e7-e6 3. Nb1-c3 Bf8-b4 4. Ng1-f3 0-0 5. Bc1-g5 c7-c5 6.
Ra1-c1 A few weeks earlier in the VAM tournament in Hoogeveen
Timman fared badly against Judit Polgar with the ambitious 6. d5.
Piket's move looks modest, but it does pose some problems which
Lautier takes too lightly. 6...c5xd4 7. Nf3xd4 d7-d5 8. e2-e3
d5xc4 9. Bf1xc4 Nb8-d7 10. 0-0 h7-h6 11. Bg5-h4 Nd7-e5 12.
Qd1-b3 Bb4-e7 13. Rf1-d1 Neglecting his development, black has
thrown open the centre and now he is in acute difficulties.
13...Ne5xc4 14. Nd4-c6 Now black should have played the normal
14...Qe8, though white would have a clear advantage after 15.
Nxe7+ Qxe7 16. Qxc4. 14...Nc4-d2 This amounts to a fatal loss of
time. 15. Rd1xd2 Qd8-e8 Because after 15...Qxd2, which must
have been his intention, follows 16. Nxe7+ Kh8 17. Rd1 and black
loses his queen. 16. Nc3-b5 Bc8-d7 17. Nc6xe7+ Qe8xe7 18.
Bh4xf6 g7xf6 19. Rc1-c7 Ra8-d8 20. Nb5-c3 Qe7-e8 21. Nc3-e4
Kg8-g7 22. Ne4-d6 Qe8-e7 (See Diagram) 

Now white can win any way he likes, most obviously with 23.
Nxb7, but with what must have been sadistic pleasure, he made a
unnecessary quiet move that underlines black's helplessness. 23.
h2-h3 Black resigned.

White: Anand Black: Kortchnoi, Fontys, ninth round. 1. Ng1-f3 A
coward's move? Apparently that was Kortchnoi's opinion. The rest
of the world tends to think that it is the move of a player who
masters all aspects of the game and who feels at home not only
after 1. e4, but in all opening systems. 1...d7-d5 2. d2-d4 Ng8-f6 3.
c2-c4 e7-e6 4. Nb1-c3 c7-c5 5. c4xd5 c5xd4 6. Qd1xd4 Nf6xd5 7.
e2-e4 Nd5xc3 8. Qd4xc3 To me it seems that it is black who is not
really in a fighting mood, because in this simplified position with
an almost symmetrical pawn structure he can only hope for a draw
after some uphill fighting. 8...Nb8-c6 9. a2-a3 Bc8-d7 10. Bf1-e2
Ra8-c8 11. 0-0 Nc6-a5 12. Qc3-d3 Bd7-a4 13. Qd3xd8+ Rc8xd8
14. Bc1-e3 Na5-b3 (See Diagram) 

15. Be2-d1 This strong move had been played in Kramnik-Van
Wely, Monte Carlo 1998 (Rapid Game), but Kortchnoi did not
know this. In that game black played 15...a6 and after 16. Bxb3
Bxb3 17. Rac1 white was clearly better. 15...b7-b5 But this is even
worse. 16. Bd1xb3 Ba4xb3 17. Rf1-c1 e6-e5 Black's Bb3 was in
trouble which is not solved by this desperate pawn sacrifice. 18.
Nf3xe5 a7-a6 19. Ne5-c6 Black resigned.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
NRC-Handelsblad November 7, 1998. 

Copyright 1998 Hans Ree, All Rights Reserved. 