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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 | | 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 | | 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 | | 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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| Jul-06-10 | | wordfunph: One day, GM Jan Hein Donner received a letter from an inmate of an asylum for the insane, impeaching him (Donner) as the FalseGrandMasterDonner and urging him to retreat, signing himself (the lunatic) as the TrueGrandMasterDonner. Donner considered this the greatest recognition a man can get. |
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| Aug-29-10 | | Dredge Rivers: Contrary to popular belief, the Donner Pass is not named for him! |
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| Dec-10-11 | | wordfunph: based on Daniel King's book How Good is Your Chess, the late Dutch Grandmaster Jan Hein Donner once said that if he had to play a computer, he would take along a hammer. :-) |
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| Feb-14-12 | | brankat: Agreed :-) |
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| Jun-27-12 | | wordfunph: <Caissanist: 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.> i'm on page 31 now, i rate GM Donner's The King - Chess Pieces at 10/10! simply juicy and entertaining masterpiece.. |
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Jul-06-12
 | | LoveThatJoker: GM Donner, today you are remembered!
LTJ |
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| Jul-06-12 | | tino72: Happy birthday Hein Donner. 85 today. The king of chess literature! (People: if you have not yet read "The King" then you are missing out.) |
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| Jul-15-12 | | achieve: For those interested in the <Jan Hein Donner> pronunciation: I submitted the correct one to CG and you can hear it by clicking the "PRONUNCIATION" button located at the top of the Bio section. |
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| Sep-08-12 | | Caissanist: I'm not surprised to see the rave reviews of <The King> from those who have only read the first few pages; by far the best writing in that book is from earlier in his career, when he was primarily a chess professional who did some writing on the side. The last two thirds or so of the book, though, is mostly pretty boring. |
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| Feb-06-13 | | thomastonk: His gravestone has the following inscription:
"HIER LIGT HEIN
ZIJN WAS ZIJN"
I can translate it word by word, but what does it mean? |
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Feb-06-13
 | | Stonehenge: Perhaps "here lies Hein, his was to be". |
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| Feb-08-13 | | thomastonk: Here is a Donner quote from "The King", p 308: "I'd like to point out that my name is: J.H. Donner, to my friends: Hein. 'Jan Hein', however, I am not, have never been and wouldn't want to be either." The original quote appeared in "Schaakbulletin" 136, March 1979 in occasion of a review of two book. Donner wrote that in both books occasionally a 'grandmaster Jan Hein Donner' appears, sometimes refereed to as 'our Jan Hein'. |
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| Mar-24-13 | | Osbourne Cox: This is an excerpt from Jan Timmans "J.H. Donner: an obituary" (First published in New in Chess Magazine 1/1989):
"...he was always in his best form during the Olympiads. Travelling with Donner was always a very special experience for his teammates. Once at Schiphol Airport I was next in line to him at the security check. "Have you got any weapons with you?" the ground stewardess asked. "Yes, a formidable brain", he answered, leaving a stunned pair of stewardesses behind."
I love this guy. Do you know anybody like him out there today? |
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| Jul-06-13 | | sneaky pete: Happy birthday, GM Donner. I'm sure you won't mind that
A Matanovic vs J H Donner, 1965 is now your most famous game. |
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| Jul-17-13 | | sneaky pete: <thomastonk> About the text HIER LIGT HEIN
ZIJN WAS ZIJN
I had never seen this one before. No doubt Donner wrote it himself. Two things you maybe didn't know: First, it's a wink to the most famous epitaph in Dutch literature, written by De Schoolmeester on the poet Hubert Korneliszoon Poot: Hier ligt Poot
Hij is dood
Second, Donner was an ardent student of Heidegger (Sein und Zeit) all his life. So we must translate the epitaph in German HIER LIIEGT HEIN
SEIN WAR SEIN
which even improves the rhyme, a clear indication that we are on the right track. The second Sein, and maybe the first one too, is of course the Heideggerian Sein. Now withdraw in a log cabin in the Bavarian woods and contemplate the text for 30 or 40 years, and let us know if and what you found out. |
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| Jul-18-13 | | thomastonk: <sneaky pete> Thank you for your thoughts. It's true, I didn't know De Schoolmeester and Hubert Kornelisz Poot before. These epitaphs are really bestechend. But I knew a little bit (and not more) of Donner's preference for Heidegger and 'Sein und Zeit' from 'Na mijn dood geschreven', and I know Heidegger's relation to Todtnau and so I see where the log cabin has its origin. ;-) More than ten years ago I rent there a room for a week around Easter, but on the second day I fled to Deidesheim, a very friendly and sunny place and probably the best Rießling area in Germany. There are not too many destinations I would like to travel to nowadays, but your famous library is among them. |
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Aug-03-13
 | | Penguincw: Quote of the Day
" The passed pawn has a soul, desires, and fears. "
-J.H. Donner |
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| Mar-05-14 | | Volmac: Quote from Donner in "The King (English 2nd ed 2008) - article "Fifty":
- My case happens to be less harrowing than it would have been if I had been totally dependent on the Dutch chess World, but not everyone gets the chance of marrying a rich woman.
...
I am curious, do you know if this statement was true? Was Donner financially independent? Or is this just another example of Donner's self-irony? |
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| Mar-05-14 | | Gryz: Donner is from a rich family himself.
He was the uncle of Piet Hein Donner, who is a 5-time minister in recent Dutch cabinets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_H...
I believe the Donner family has produced a number of judges and politicians. Piet Hein (the minister) always seemed like a huge dick to me. So I bet the whole family is old-style old-money nose-in-the-air us-knows-us. So I always assumed that Donner indeed was married to a rich woman. |
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