Joop van Oosterom

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Joop van Oosterom, 2010

Joop van Oosterom (born December 12, 1937 in Hilversum , † October 22, 2016 in Monaco ) was a Dutch entrepreneur , chess player and billiards lover . He was two-time correspondence chess world champion .

Life

In 1955 he became youth chess champion in the Netherlands and took 7th place at the youth world championship in Antwerp in the same year - the winner was the later world chess champion Boris Spasski . At the student world championship in Leningrad in 1960 van Oosterom scored 7 points from 13 games. Instead of aiming for a career as a professional chess player, he founded the IT company Volmac after completing his studies in 1966 . In 1988 he sold his shares in it. With a fortune of just over 1 billion euros , he was one of the ten richest Dutch people. After a stroke he was dependent on a wheelchair from 1993 and lived withdrawn from the public.

Correspondence chess

Since he hardly had any time for tournament chess during his professional life and could only play a few games in team fights for his club HSG Hilversum , he increasingly turned to correspondence chess . There he won the Dutch championship in 1980, in 1982 he finished second behind Gert Jan Timmerman . For the Netherlands he played on board 1 in the European team championship in 1988 (5.5 points from 8 games) and in 1992 on board 2 in the correspondence chess Olympiad (10 points from 12 games). In 1993 he was appointed correspondence chess grandmaster .

After he reached 2nd place behind Timmerman in the 15th World Championship, which was completed in 2002, he succeeded in winning the title by 1.5 points at the 18th World Championship in 2005. In 2007 he won his second title at the 21st World Correspondence Chess Championship. He scored 10 points from 14 games. With an Elo rating of 2712 (from 252 games), van Oosterom led the ICCF world rankings in January 2011 .

According to his own statement, in correspondence chess the "fastest computers and the best grandmasters" were available as advisors. Although this is permissible according to the correspondence chess rules, the Dutch grandmaster Hans Ree criticized in the NRC Handelsblad that van Oosterom bought his successes with it. Tim Krabbé even noted that the games were actually played by Jeroen Piket . The former correspondence chess world champion Horst Rittner (for the GDR, 1971) reports that he, like other participants in tournaments in which van Oosterom took part, was warned by anonymous letters from Holland: According to this, van Oosterom employed two Dutch grandmasters, whom he received the equivalent of 500 DM would pay per move.

Lot

Van Oosterom won the following game in the final of the 18th World Correspondence Chess Championship.

Van Kempen - Van Oosterom

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6. Be3 the English attack in the Najdorf variant, ECO code B90 6.… e5 7 .Nb3 Be6 8. f3 Be7 9. Qd2 0–0 10. 0–0–0 Qc7 11. g4 Nbd7 12. g5 Nh5 13. Nd5 Bxd5 14. exd5 a5 15. Kb1 a4 16. Sc1 f6 17. g6 hxg6 18. Qg2 a3 19. Qxg6 axb2 20. Nb3 f5 21. Bh3 after 21. Qxh5 Rxa2 Black would have a strong attack 21.… Nb6 22. Qxh5 Nc4 23. Bxf5 Rxf5 24. Qxf5 Nxe3 25. Qd3 Nc4 Black refrains from taking the rook on d1 and continues to attack the king 26. Nd2 Nxd2 + 27. Rxd2 Qa5 28. a3 Qc5 29. Kxb2 White has finally succeeded in eliminating the dangerous b2 pawn, but with his next move Black decisively opens the long diagonal for his bishop 29.… e4 30. Qb3 Bg5 31. Re2 Bf6 + 32. c3 exf3 33. Rd2 Re8 34. Ka2 b5 35. Rc2 Kh7 36. Rhc1 Re3 37. Rb2 Bxc3 38. Qxb5 Qd4 39. Rbc2 Kh6 40. h4 Re2 41. Kb3 Bd2 42. Rf1 Qe3 + White gives up, 0: 1.

patron

Van Oosterom was also active as a patron . In the Netherlands he sponsored the Volmac Rotterdam association as early as the 1970s . From 1992 to 2011 he hosted the highly endowed chess tournaments named after his daughter Melody Amber in his adopted home Monaco , in which world-class players competed in rapid and blind chess . He also organized competitions between the best female chess players against senior citizens, for which he also signed ex-world champions such as Vasily Smyslow and Boris Spassky, as well as the NH Chess Tournament , in which young talents played against experienced grandmasters.

From 1994 to 2011 he also hosted one of the world's most highly endowed three-cushion tournaments , the Crystal Kelly Tournament (named after his other daughter) in Monaco and neighboring Nice , and among the players was a small, albeit unofficial, world championship . It was an invitation tournament in which the best three-cushion players in the world took part, including the world champions “Mr. 100 “ Raymond Ceulemans , Torbjörn Blomdahl , Dick Jaspers and Frédéric Caudron . The prize money was only exceeded in 2018 with the McCreery three - cushion champion of champions hosted by US billionaire Robert Mercer .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johan Hut, Schaaksite.nl 19 February. 2017
  2. ↑ André Schulz: Joop van Oosterom is dead , Chessbase, February 7, 2017
  3. ↑ Tournament table of the 18th FS-WM
  4. ↑ ICCF press release ( Memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Eric van Reem: Chess patron becomes world champion. In: Schach-Magazin 64 No. 5, 2005, p. 135
  6. ↑ Is everything cooperative? April 14, 2006 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Chess diary, No. 277, Feb. 21, 2005
  8. ↑ Sibylle Heyme: Horst Rittner is 70. In: Schach No. 7, 2000, pp. 61–62
  9. ↑ Frits Bakker: Crystal Kelly cup: farewell to a phenomenon ( English ) Kozoom.com. June 20, 2011. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012. Retrieved on October 9, 2012.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oosterom, Joop van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch entrepreneur and chess player
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Hilversum
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 2016
Place of death Monaco