Dutch Treat 
by Hans Ree

Jake, Joe and Garry

Would Uncle John be still alive? Since 1935, when the first edition
appeared of the book Oom Jan leert zijn neefje schaken (Uncle
John teaches chess to his nephew) by Alb. Loon and Dr M. Euwe,
generations of Dutch children have learnt chess from it and only a
few years ago this classic was a source of inspiration for the
beautiful and very succesful children's film Lang Leve de Koningin
(Long live the Queen), directed by Esme Lammers, who by the way
is a granddaughter of Euwe.

Uncle John, who in an illustration in the first edition looks
remarkably like Euwe, is the teacher. His nephew John, named
after him, is the pupil. Father, though a bit stubborn and conceited,
picks up a few grains of chess wisdom himself, and Mother stays
subserviently in the background. Only seldom does she contribute
to the learned discourse. 

"Heathens," says Mother with repugnance.

This she said in the first edition about the Arabs who brought the
game of chess to Europe. Later editions are more sober, but even
then chess technique was spread thinly among the reflections on
soccer, Uncle John's bachelor's home and on everything that
occurred to the fertile mind of Alb. Loon. Who was this Alb. Loon,
co-author of probably the best selling Dutch chess book ever? I
don't know and I never met anyone who did.

Uncle John's teachings did not only inspire the children's film
mentioned above, but also a brilliant parody written by
grandmaster Hein Donner in the Dutch magazine Schaakbulletin in
1974. 

Uncle John, his nephew, Father and Mother are happily gathered
around the chess board when the doorbell rings. "Oh dear, I do
hope it's not Uncle Hein," says Mother. But unfortunately it was.

No student of Uncle John could fail to be impressed by the
following iron law of chess: do not bring out the Queen too early in
the game, it's a beginner's mistake.

In another chess primer Volledige handleiding voor het schaakspel
(Complete manual of chess), written by Euwe alone and therefore
much more succinct than Uncle John's teachings, this iron law was
illustrated by some games between Jake and Joe. Uncle John, Jake
and Joe have been three pillars of Dutch chess education for more
than half a century.

Jake and Joe are beginners in chess. Jake likes to bring out his
Queen early and in the first few games he is quite succesful.

White: Jake Black Joe 1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Bc1-c4 Bf8-c5 3. Qd1-
h5 Ng8-f6 4. Qh5xf7 mate. In slightly different versions this
Scholar's Mate is delivered to Joe twice. Earlier he had been the
victim of Fool's Mate, 1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4 mate.

Joe makes a sensible decision: he buys a book about chess. As to
which book this was, we are left in the dark. Could it have been the
Volledige handleiding voor het schaakspel itself? In that case Joe
would have found the games that he was to play against Jake in the
future, which would have been too easy for him and even unfair.
Rightly Euwe is not distracted by such speculations.

White: Jake Black Joe 1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Bf1-c4 Ng8-f6 First
bring out the Knights, then the Bishops, a rule Joe found in his
book. Now Jake, deprived of the possibility to threaten his beloved
Scholar's Mate, got confused and lost. So in the next game he
played differently.

White: Jake Black Joe 1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Qd1-h5 "You must be
afraid that otherwise after 2...Nf6 it would be too late to bring out
your Queen too early," Joe remarked smartly. 2...Nb8-c6 3. Bf1-c4
g7-g6 Joe has learned a thing or two. 4. Qh5-f3 Ng8-f6 5. Qf3-b3
Nc6-d4 6. Bc4xf7+ Ke8-e7 7. Qb3-c4 b7-b5 8. Qc4-c5+ d7-d6 9.
Qc5-c3 Ke7xf7 and White resigned.

Having blundered a piece on move 6, Jake asked if he could start
anew from that point. This was allowed and there followed: 6.
Qb3-c3 d7-d5 7. Bc4xd5 Nf6xd5 8. e4xd5 Bc8-f5 9. d2-d3 Bf8-
b4 10. Qc3xb4 Nd4xc2+ White resigned. 

Anyone who doesn't realize after these examples that bringing out
the Queen too early is bad, is truly incorrigible.

One of these incorrigibles was the late Dutch attorney J.T. van
Eybergen, a colorful character in Dutch chess life who habitually
insisted on playing the openings his own way, and not in the way
of the books.

The story goes that in the sixties Euwe played on first board for the
club named after him, Max Euwe. On second board Van Eybergen
would play with satanic relish 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 and Euwe would
watch it with the same repugnance that Mother, earlier in this
article, had shown when talking about the heathens. Thus it has
been told to me, but if it is true I do not know.

But who was right, Euwe or Van Eybergen? Here is a game that
sheds a different light on this question than the games between
Jake and Joe did.

White: Woody Harrelson Black: Garry Kasparov, Prague 1999
White is a famous actor, known among other things as the good
and innocent assistant-barman in the TV series Cheers. Black
needs no introduction.

1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Qd1-h5 Nb8-c6 3. Bf1-c4 Qd8-e7 4. Ng1-f3
Ng8-f6 5. Qh5-h4 d7-d6 6. d2-d3 h7-h6 7. h2-h3 Bc8-e6 8.
Nb1-c3 Be6xc4 9. d3xc4 Nc6-d4 10. Nf3xd4 e5xd4 11. Nc3-e2
c7-c5 12. f2-f3 d6-d5 13. c4xd5 Nf6xd5 14. Qh4xe7+ Nd5xe7 15.
Bc1-d2 0-0-0 16. 0-0-0 g7-g6 17. Ne2-f4 Bf8-g7 18. c2-c4 d4xc3
19. Bd2xc3 Bg7xc3 20. b2xc3 b7-b6 21. c3-c4 Ne7-c6 22. Kc1-b2
Rh8-e8 23. Rd1xd8+ Re8xd8 24. Nf4-d5 h6-h5 25. a2-a4
Kc8-d7 26. Kb2-c3 Kd7-e6 27. f3-f4 Nc6-d4 28. Rh1-d1
Nd4-e2+ 29. Kc3-c2 Ne2-d4+ 30. Kc2-c3 Nd4-e2+ (See Diagram)

Draw agreed. It has to be admitted that Harrison was helped by the
grandmasters who were in Prague at the occasion of the match
between Shirov and Judit Polgar, but that does not alter the fact
that the so-called beginner's move 2. Qh5 makes quite a decent
impression here. Not so in the next game.

White: Boris Becker Black: Garry Kasparov, New York 2000 1.
e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Qd1-h5 Nb8-c6 3. Qh5-f3 Nc6-d4 4. Qf3-c3
Ng8-f6 5. f2-f3 g7-g6 6. Ng1-e2 c7-c5 7. Ne2xd4 c5xd4 8.
Qc3-b3 Bf8-g7 9. Bf1-c4 0-0 10. c2-c3 d7-d5 11. Bc4-e2 d4-d3
12. Be2xd3 d5xe4 13. Bd3xe4 Nf6xe4 14. f3xe4 Qd8-h4+ 15.
Ke1-d1 Qh4xe4 16. Rh1-e1 Bc8-g4+ 17. Re1-e2 Qe4xe2+ White
resigned.

Here again 2. Qh5 looks like a true beginner's move, just as it did
in Jake's games. But should this be blamed on the move, or on Jake
and Boris? 

Vladimir Kramnik is not a beginner at all, but nevertheless some
years ago he intended to try out the move 2. Qh5 against Kasparov
in the PCA Grand Prix rapid tournaments, though only in the blitz
games that were to decide the outcome when rapid games failed to
do so. Kramnik told this to Nigel Short, who recently told it to us
in his column in the Sunday Telegraph, an English weekly
newspaper devoted to the pleasures of fox hunting, but also
providing less gruesome news. Somehow Kramnik never did it. He
got the chance only once in the PCA tournaments (in the blitz
games that is) and then preferred 2. Nf3, and in his 1998 match of
blitz games against Kasparov he avoided 1. e4 in all his games
with White. But it would have been a responsible experiment.
Imagine the shock when the world champion would be threatened
with a Scholar's Mate, not by someone like Harrison or Becker, but
by one of his most respected colleagues. The cheek of it! It would
appear as a real insult.

As an added advantage Kasparov would be out of his much-feared
opening preparation from move two. And, most important, in the
main variation after 1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Qd1-h5 Nb8-c6 3. Bf1-c4
g7-g6 4. Qh5-f3 Ng8-f6 5. Ng1-e2 (instead of Jake's 5. Qb3?)
White is not worse, according to Kramnik. True, he doesn't have an
advantage either, as Short sensibly remarks, but one can't have
everything. (See Diagram)

I won't go so far to predict a glittering future for Jake's opening, but
I do think that after Kramnik's avowal we will see this position
more often. Intrepid experimenters should be aware of the gambit
1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nf6 3. Qxe5+ Be7, though I do not quite trust this
for Black.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
NRC-Handelsblad June 17, 2000. Copyright 2000 Hans Ree, All
Rights Reserved. 