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Sep-30-08
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| Sem: Like many people I subscribed to the Dutch journal 'Schaakbulletin' in the eighties, almost solely to read Donner's (in)famous and hilarious columns. IMO his comical best was: 'Uncle Hein teaches his nephew to play chess', a direct parody of an insipid book for aspiring young players, to which Euwe had lent his name. The serious side of Donner was deeply interested in philosophy, notably in Heidegger. At its best his style was a mix of Old and New Testament language, philosophy, and the language of the famous Dutch serious-comical strip 'Tom Poes'. And let us not forget it was Donner who accurately predicted that Fischer would go mad once he would become world champion. For that reason he also drew a parallel between Fischer and the main character Fischerle (!) in Elias Canetti's book 'Die Blendung', publisged before Fischer's rise to stardom. |
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| Sep-30-08 |
| Petrosianic: <And let us not forget it was Donner who accurately predicted that Fischer would go mad once he would become world champion.> He did? I've never heard that prediction. What did he say, exactly? |
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Oct-01-08
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| Tessie Tura: I think the exact quote can be found in one of the essays in "The King:Chess Pieces," which I glanced through once but didn't buy, a mistake. I remember Donner as saying flatly that Fischer was mad as a hatter or words to that effect, but that could be wrong. Not all Donner's predictions about Fischer turned out, it should be noted. He once said when Fischer was a teenager that he would never make a world champion. <For that reason he also drew a parallel between Fischer and the main character Fischerle (!) in Elias Canetti's book 'Die Blendung', publisged before Fischer's rise to stardom.> Edmonds and Eidenow draw that comparison in “Bobby Fischer Goes to War,” too. I wonder if they picked it up from Donner or somebody who'd read him. The Canetti book was published about a decade before Fischer was born. |
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| Oct-02-08 |
| Ziggurat: I just checked my copy of The King but couldn't find the prediction - at least not exactly. He does write, during the Fischer-Spassky match, <[...] it doesn't take much insight into human nature to predict that Fischer will not be world champion for long. His quirks, moods and whims will turn against him at the moment when he has reached the top. He'll hit out hard, but at nothing but thin air.> Later, in 1975, he wrote an article titled <Bobby Fischer is insane>, where he lamented that Fischer had refused Karpov's challenge. <There can now be no other conclusion: Fischer is insane. Against my better judgement, I kept on hoping that he would listen to reason in the end, but my own prophecy was fulfilled.> (He then goes on to quote the excerpt I pasted above.) It should be added that Donner was, in general, very sympathetic to Fischer. |
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| Oct-02-08 |
| Petrosianic: Hm. Fischer may well have been nuts, but the fact that he decided to retire undefeated doesn't by itself prove that to me. And the lashing out hard and hitting thin air didn't happen until 1992. It's stretching a point a bit to say that Donner predicted it. |
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| Oct-02-08 |
| sneaky pete: Dr. Donner didn't predict but diagnosed in a report for the newspaper <De Tijd> on July 14, 1972, after Fischer forfeited the second game: "Ja, natuurlijk, Bobby Fischer is niet goed wijs, maar dat wisten we toch?" ("Yes, of course, Bobby Fischer is cuckoo, but we knew that, didn't we?"). The article is reprinted in (my Dutch edition of) <The King>. |
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| Oct-21-08 |
| Fanacas: Donner had great respect for Euwe. But then again almost every dutch grandmaster had respect for Euwe :P |
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Nov-11-08
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| Caissanist: <Hm. Fischer may well have been nuts, but the fact that he decided to retire undefeated doesn't by itself prove that to me. And the lashing out hard and hitting thin air didn't happen until 1992.> I always thought that Donner's words were a reasonable prediction of Fischer's behavior in 1975. |
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| Dec-21-08 |
| sneaky pete: <Sem> For Donner's most famous rant, see
Znosko-Borovsky vs Euwe, 1924. It's also the only time he insulted Euwe by proxy, another way of showing his respect (you know of course the dictum, that whoever was never insulted by Donner doesn't rate high as a chessplayer). |
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| Apr-03-09 |
| Edwin M: I'm only 2 pages into "The King" and it is allready clear to me i purchased a gem of a book. A must have. Especially if you're a Dutch chess fan. |
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May-01-09
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| blacksburg: i've read the about 1/3rd of <The King>, and i don't understand where all the raving reviews come from. Donner reminds me of the trolls that inhabit the Kramnik page. |
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| May-01-09 |
| moronovich: <The King> is hillariuos and hereby higly recommended. And ,btw,one tip : Dont take Donner litterally on everything he writes. |
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May-04-09
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| whiteshark: Quote of the Day
" I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. Give me a bad position, I will defend it. Openings, endgames, complicated positions, dull draws, I love them and I will do my very best. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them. "
-- Hein Donner
Maybe he's not a masochistic patzer which was my first thought. |
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| Jul-06-09 |
| edbermac: "Also not to be missed is his explanation of Fischer's flop at Buenos Aires, 1960 (it involves
GM Larry Evans, a sum of money, and a friendly, well-endowed woman of flexible virtue)" So what is the story Donner tells about Fischer and the woman in Buenos Aires? Brad Darrach mentions something about this in Bobby Fischer vs the Rest of the World. Please include as many salacious details as possible! |
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Jul-06-09
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| brankat: A strong GM, a very fine author possesed of a unique sense of humour, Mr.J.H.Donner has been missed very much, but his games and literary work live on. R.I.P. GM Donner. |
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| Jul-06-09 |
| returnoftheking: <Donner reminds me of the trolls that inhabit the Kramnik page.> hehe..
J. H. Donner was actually one of the more likable characters of his -influential- family (many politicians and high ranking civil servants, and even now a relative of him is leader of the department of justice). |
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Jul-06-09
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| wordfunph: Liu Wenzhe was the first Chinese chess master and China’s first chess player to defeat a grandmaster. At the 1978 Olympiad in Buenos Aires, he defeated Dutch GM Jan Hein Donner. After he resigned, Donner remarked to another Westerner, "When they have the first
international tournament in Peking, Donner will be the first European invited." HAPPY BIRTHDAY GM Jan Hein DONNER!!! |
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Jul-06-09
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| ketchuplover: Any relation to the Donner party? |
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Jul-06-09
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| parisattack: I am so pleased his book has been reprinted! The original edition is very difficult to find - and it is such a wonderful read. Happy B-Day to you Jan Hein! |
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| Jul-06-09 |
| testguy: In essence JH Donner has become like his own view of Mulisch: the octopus hiding behind clouds of ink (ink on paper, of course). An enigmatic, solemny interesting character. I don't know of his latter writings have been translated in English, but those are very good as well. Chesswise, JH Donner was notoriously careless and inconsistant. Capable of wonderful brilliancies and utter faillure, even in his heyday. Lehmann vs J H Donner, 1965
One of his last games is this funny win over one of the first chess computers. "what I basically did, was nothing. A billiard player would call it carotte. J H Donner vs Belle, 1982 |
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| Jul-06-09 |
| WhiteRook48: if he was ahead of Botvinnik why didn't I hear of him before? |
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Jul-06-09
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| Caissanist: "Capable of wonderful brilliancies and utter faillure, even in his heyday." After reading <The King>, I'd say that that's a fair verdict not only for Donner the chessplayer, but for Donner the writer as well. |
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Jul-07-09
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| whiteshark: <blacksburg: ...< i don't understand where all the raving reviews come from... <Donner reminds me of the trolls that inhabit the Kramnik page.>>> Necessarily no contradiction. :D |
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Jul-22-09
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| Sem: Petrosianic, I am responding to your question of Sept. 30, 2008. I tried to find Donner's article about Fischer, but in vain. What I did come across were various other articles by him about Fischer's mental health, written in the 1970s. They were interesting enough, but not what I had in mind.
I seem to remember that Donner once reasoned that in his chess career Fischer - brought up in a family without a father - needed a father figure above him that he could destroy with a vengeance. Once he would be world champion he would have become that figure himself and would therefore find himself in a vacuum. He would no longer be able to direct his fierce aggression, which would simply derange him. |
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| Sep-02-09 |
| redwhitechess: just read "the King", very hilarious. i never knew his personality before read this book I only know him by this game : Liu Wenzhe vs J H Donner, 1978 His writing is very original. Remind me of another weird chess personality, Tony Miles. |
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