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Joop van Oosterom
J van Oosterom 
Photo credit: ajedrezdeataque.com 

Number of games in database: 118
Years covered: 1955 to 2009
Last FIDE rating: 2260
Overall record: +52 -11 =55 (67.4%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games.

Repertoire Explorer
Most played openings
B90 Sicilian, Najdorf (13 games)
E97 King's Indian (6 games)
B92 Sicilian, Najdorf, Opocensky Variation (4 games)
C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed (4 games)
C78 Ruy Lopez (3 games)
B80 Sicilian, Scheveningen (3 games)
C92 Ruy Lopez, Closed (3 games)
E06 Catalan, Closed, 5.Nf3 (3 games)
D43 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav (3 games)
E32 Nimzo-Indian, Classical (3 games)

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JOOP VAN OOSTEROM
(born Dec-12-1937, died Oct-22-2016, 78 years old) Netherlands
PRONUNCIATION:
[what is this?]

GMC Joop van Oosterom was born in Hilversum on December 12th, 1937, five days after Max Euwe lost the world title. His brother is Henny van Oosterom. Joop's first notable chess success occurred in April of 1955, when he became the Dutch Youth Champion in Enschede. However, financial and professional interests would soon separate him from competitive chess for many years.

In 1966, two ex-IBM employees, Van Oosterom and J. C. Mol, founded the Automation Center Volmac, the first Dutch software company. In 1988 Volmac went public and they became multi-millionaires, obtaining cash and stock for their stake in the company. The Dutch financial magazine "Quote 500" estimated that Van Oosterom's net worth was over 1 billion euros.

By the early 1980s, Van Oosterom was secure enough to devote attention to his first love. He was Dutch correspondence chess champion in 1980-1981, and played in a number of other correspondence events, including winning the Three-Quarter-Final Candidates section of the 14th World Championship which began November 1987, and was awarded the CC-IM title as a result. In February of 2005, Van Oosterom achieved his lifelong goal, winning the 18th World Correspondence Chess Championship Final. In 2008, he won the 21st World Championship Final.

At the time of the 2005 Championship Final van Oosterom had hired the strong grandmaster Jeroen Piket as his personal secretary. Earlier, van Oosterom had had two Dutch International Masters on his payroll whose job was to analyse his correspondence games. Tim Krabbe wrote: "The Turk was operated by William Schlumberger, Mephisto was operated by Isidor Gunsberg, Ajeeb was operated by Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Joop van Oosterom is operated by Jeroen Piket."

A true philanthropist, Van Oosterom became involved in chess sponsorship, through the Max Euwe Association that he founded. Starting in 1992, he began to sponsor the innovative Melody Amber tournaments, involving leading GMs in both rapid and "blindfold" games. This tournament was conducted annually for 20 years.

Wikipedia article: Joop van Oosterom

Last updated: 2023-12-18 01:42:31

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 118  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Spassky vs J van Oosterom  1-0521955World Junior Championship qual-1C77 Ruy Lopez
2. J van Oosterom vs M Farre  ½-½271955Wch U20 final-AB90 Sicilian, Najdorf
3. Portisch vs J van Oosterom  1-0381955Wch U20 final-AA44 Old Benoni Defense
4. Spassky vs J van Oosterom 1-0221955Wch U20 final-AE85 King's Indian, Samisch, Orthodox Variation
5. J van Oosterom vs G Tringov  ½-½411955Wch U20 final-AE59 Nimzo-Indian, 4.e3, Main line
6. E Mednis vs J van Oosterom  1-0351955Wch U20 final-AC59 Two Knights
7. J van Oosterom vs R Martens  ½-½621960WchT U26 07thA21 English
8. D Bertholdt vs J van Oosterom  1-0301960WchT U26 07thA53 Old Indian
9. J van Oosterom vs Y Nikolaevsky  1-0401960WchT U26 07thA07 King's Indian Attack
10. J van Oosterom vs A Hollis  1-0401960WchT U26 07thA16 English
11. W Van Humbeeck vs J van Oosterom  0-1251960WchT U26 07thB41 Sicilian, Kan
12. J van Oosterom vs Ivkov  0-1501967Imperia opA10 English
13. J van Oosterom vs M Romi  1-0351967Imperia opA30 English, Symmetrical
14. J Sinke vs J van Oosterom 0-1121980NED-ch10 corrC33 King's Gambit Accepted
15. P Seewald vs J van Oosterom  0-1361980NED-ch10 corrE06 Catalan, Closed, 5.Nf3
16. J van Oosterom vs R E Booij  1-0271980NED-ch10 corrC80 Ruy Lopez, Open
17. G Timmerman vs J van Oosterom  ½-½411980NED-ch10 corrC84 Ruy Lopez, Closed
18. J van Oosterom vs G Timmerman 0-1311982Volmac-A corr8286C47 Four Knights
19. J J Carleton vs J van Oosterom 0-1271987W-ch14 q02 corr8793C55 Two Knights Defense
20. A Deuel vs J van Oosterom  ½-½531987W-ch14 q02 corr8793E17 Queen's Indian
21. J van Oosterom vs J Kolenbrander  1-0491991NED jub25 corr9193E84 King's Indian, Samisch, Panno Main line
22. T Wibe vs J van Oosterom  ½-½541991NED jub25 corr9193C27 Vienna Game
23. G Timmerman vs J van Oosterom  ½-½501991NED jub25 corr9193B93 Sicilian, Najdorf, 6.f4
24. H Rittner vs J van Oosterom  ½-½681991NED jub25 corr9193B96 Sicilian, Najdorf
25. E Bang vs J van Oosterom  ½-½301994NOR jub50 corrE15 Queen's Indian
 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 118  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | van Oosterom wins | van Oosterom loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Feb-07-05  azaris: The newly crowned 18th World Correspondence Chess Champion.

One victorious game from the tournament:

[Event "WC18F"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2003.06.01"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Oosterom, Joop J.van (NED)"]
[Black "Hefka, Vladimir (SVK)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2725"]
[BlackElo "2574"]
[ECO "B90"]
[PlyCount "89"]
[EventDate "2003.??.??"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. f3 Be7 9. Qd2 O-O 10. O-O-O Qc7 11. g4 Rc8 12. g5 Nh5 13. Kb1 Nd7 14. Rg1 Nb6 15. Qf2 Bd8 16. h4 g6 17. Rg2 Qc6 18. f4 exf4 19. Bxf4 Nxf4 20. Qxf4 Be7 21. h5 Bf8 22. Nd4 Qe8 23. Rf2 Rxc3 24. bxc3 Na4 25. Rf3 b5 26. Nxe6 Qxe6 27. Bh3 Qc4 28. Rdf1 Ra7 29. e5 Qxf4 30. Rxf4 Nxc3+ 31. Ka1 Bg7 32. exd6 Be5 33. d7 Rxd7 34. Bxd7 Ne2+ 35. Kb1 Bxf4 36. c4 Bxg5 37. Re1 Ng3 38. hxg6 bxc4 39. Re8+ Kg7 40. gxh7 Kxh7 41. Kc2 Nf1 42. Kc3 Bd2+ 43. Kxc4 a5 44. Bh3 Ng3 45. Rd8 1-0

Feb-20-05  coffee monster: <chessgames.com> van Oosterom is a correspondence player, therefore his rating is ICCF rather than FIDE. This means he unexpectedly shows up as the 18th highest rated player of all time on the ChessGames.com Statistics Page. Maybe for correspondence players the ratings should be deleted from the PGN files? Or maybe people would rather know the ICCF ratings and don't care about the statistics page? What do other users think?
Feb-21-05  Minor Piece Activity: Why not make a separate stat for correspondence chess? It wouldn't be nice to delete the rating just because it is correspondence. People who submit PGN could just choose to list the rating used for the event, for example the correspondence chess rating if the player is the CC finals.
Feb-22-05  iron maiden: Some note should probably be made that the rating is for correspondence chess, though.
Feb-22-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  Joshka: So what Eco code is this 'English attack'in the Najdorf Sicilian?
Feb-22-05  Backward Development: Sicilian, Najdorf (B90)
Feb-22-05  csmath: No separate code from Naydorf, both e6 and e5 can be played after 6. Be3 which defines it (and 7.f3). Some people claim it to be very dangerous against Naydorf. I play Naydorf regularly as black and I don't see big problems with this except that the game is always very tactical. If I would be white first I would never allow going into Naydorf but if you must the best to battle is probably Keres Attack. Speed is essential. This particular game does not look very exciting to me and I do not see anything "staggering" as described on chessbase.
Feb-22-05  euripides: <csmath> the way I understand the Keres attack you can only play it against the Scheveningen move order i.e. 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cd 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 d6 6 g4. Against the Najdorf 6 g4 ? would lose a pawn. The Keres is certainly the most intimidating line for a Scheveningen player to face, but if White plays it he needs something else against the Najdorf. White can of course play 6 Be3 e6 7 g4 against the Najdorf, known as the Perenyi, and very sharp.
Feb-22-05  aragorn69: Hail to the new champ ! But here is a piece of devious gossip by the usually very well-informed Tim Krabbé :

<Some famous players and their operators.

The Turk was operated by William Schlumberger, Mephisto was operated by Isidore Gunsberg, Ajeeb was operated by Harry Pillsbury and Joop van Oosterom, the Dutch billionaire / new World Correspondence Chess Champion, is operated by Jeroen Piket.>

Source: http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/...

Feb-22-05  WMD: Miaow!
Feb-22-05  csmath: <<the way I understand the Keres attack you can only play it against the Scheveningen move order i.e. 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cd 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 d6 6 g4. Against the Najdorf 6 g4 ? would lose a pawn. The Keres is certainly the most intimidating line for a Scheveningen player to face, but if White plays it he needs something else against the Najdorf. White can of course play 6 Be3 e6 7 g4 against the Najdorf, known as the Perenyi, and very sharp. >> Keres Attack is idea and it is just fine with Naydorf.

1. e4 ... c5
2. Nf3 ... d6
3. d4 ... cxd4
4. Nxd4 ... Nf6
5. Nc3 ... a6
6. Be3 ... e6
7. g4

This is the most dangerous weapon against Naydorf though there is no particularly good weapons against Naydorf. This is simply one opening to avoid unless you are very tactical player and believe in your guts. It is allowing black too much of a countergame.

Feb-22-05  euripides: <csmath> That's called the Perenyi in the books I'm familiar with. It differs from the Keres attack in the Scheveningen in that ...e5 is a more common response because Bb5+ is not possible.
Feb-22-05  csmath: I'd still call it Keres' Attack, the ideas are the same as in Scheveningen. I play Naydorf almost exclusively unless I am forced to play something else but I do not play e5 (well perhaps maybe few times), though you are right, that is quite popular. I just don't like it.
Feb-22-05  euripides: <csm> true, most of these lines can transpose into each other. After 7 g4 e5, there is a very sharp line as in

Shirov vs Judit Polgar, 1996

this is rather less normal, I think, after 6 g4 in the Scheveningen but can arise if Black plays 6...a6 (though White also has 7 g5).

Feb-22-05  russep: Are the games from the tournament in which he won coming to this site?
Feb-25-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: <aragorn69: Hail to the new champ! But here is a piece of devious gossip by the usually very well-informed Tim Krabbé : <Some famous players and their operators.

The Turk was operated by William Schlumberger, Mephisto was operated by Isidore Gunsberg, Ajeeb was operated by Harry Pillsbury and Joop van Oosterom, the Dutch billionaire / new World Correspondence Chess Champion, is operated by Jeroen Piket.>> It is a very serious charge; Krabbé seems to be saying that Oosterom cheated in order to gain the world title. Piket has been retired from chess for a few years now. There is no argument that Oosterom was a great sponsor of him throughout his career, but has their relationship continued now that Piket is inactive.

Mar-01-05  aragorn69: It is indeed a serious charge. But has van Oosterom (or Piket for that matter, although the latter may rather take the quip as a compliment) sued Krabbé for it ??
Mar-01-05  maoam: <offramp: There is no argument that Oosterom was a great sponsor of him throughout his career, but has their relationship continued now that Piket is inactive.>

I knew I'd read about van Oosterom and Piket before, now I remember where:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hans8...

Mar-01-05  maoam: <The career he had been preparing for turned out to be that of a close assistant to Joop van Oosterom, the Dutch chess patron (and a top correspondence chess player) who has spent millions on chess.>

-- Hans Ree

Mar-21-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sneaky: I'd like to make a bold plea to Mr. Oosterom on behalf of chess lovers around the globe. Help us sort out the world championship crisis!! All it would take to solve this mess is somebody who chess players can respect (that's you) and a little bit of money (that's you also.)

I'm sorry if I come across sounding brash but often I daydream about what I would do if I had a billion dollars. Somewhere on my "top 10 list" would be this: I would slap a few million on the table and say "We're having a world chess championship, right here, right now, no more excuses." I beg of you to share this daydream with me, because you're one of the only people on earth with both the wherewithal and interest to turn this dream into a reality. Who knows, we might even lure Kasparov back to the board.

Mar-21-05  DP12: Actually if you analyse this line with g4 against the Najdorf I think the critical game is Gormally v. Kaufman which showed close to a forced perpetual in the g4 lines. But to say that the English attack is not dangerous is not right at all... especially in the e6 lines white has a strong position although of course black has counterchances which if he exploits well, he can turn the game. e5 has Kasparov as has been used alot lately seems more solid but of course white still has to be at least slightly better although of course your point that whoever is most comfortable (i.e Kasparov) will win.
Apr-15-06  EmperorAtahualpa: An article in Dutch by GM Hans Ree about correspondence chess and world correspondence chess champion Joop van Oosterom:

"IS ALLES TE KOOP?

Door Hans Ree

In het correspondentieschaak mag alles. Je mag computers gebruiken en vrienden om raad vragen, zelfs als die vrienden veel sterker schaken dan jij zelf. Om het te verhinderen zou je een sterke geheime correspondentieschaakpolitie nodig hebben, dus een verbod is zinloos.

Vorig jaar werd de Nederlandse financiële zwaargewicht Joop van Oosterom de 18de wereldkampioen correspondentieschaak. Er wordt vaak gezegd dat hij bij het spelen van zijn partijen geholpen wordt door de topschakers die in zijn jaarlijkse Ambertoernooi mogen spelen, maar ik denk dat dat niet juist is uitgedrukt. De partijen die hij in dat wereldkampioenschap speelde en de analyses die hij er later over publiceerde zijn zo fantastisch goed dat ik er van overtuigd ben dat hij zich er zelf helemaal niet mee bemoeid heeft.

Zoals gezegd, het is niet tegen de regels, maar het zou zuiverder zijn als dat wereldkampioenschap zou zijn toegekend aan Van Oosterom Holding of iets dergelijks. Bij autoraces en in de paardensport is het ook niet zo dat de eigenaar van de renstal zelf tot wereldkampioen wordt benoemd.

Het lijkt me dat er voor de beste correspondentieschakers weinig aardigheid meer aan is om aan een wereldkampioenschap mee te doen waarvoor het anonieme collectief van Van Oosterom zich ook heeft ingeschreven. Misschien komt het daardoor dat twee oud-wereldkampioenen samen de strijd zijn aangegaan, man tegen man, net als vroeger.

Het zijn Mikhail Umansky, een Rus die in Duitsland woont, en de Nederlander Gert Jan Timmerman. Umansky was de 13de wereldkampioen in het correspondentieschaak, van 1998 tot 2000, en Timmerman de 15de, van 2001 tot 2003.

Sinds juli 2005 spelen ze een match van zes partijen. In vier daarvan waren gambieten voorgeschreven. De partijen kunnen worden gevolgd op de website www.chessevents.nl en ze zijn volgens mij van een grote diepzinnigheid die in het gewone schaak meestal niet haalbaar is. Als ik het goed begrepen heb is de bedenktijd in iedere partij 60 dagen voor 10 zetten.

Source: http://www.nrc.nl/rubrieken/schaken... (registration required)

(This link also contains an analysis of a game between Timmerman and Umansky.)

May-12-07  whiteshark: Dear Mr. van Oosterom,

CONGRATULATIONS FOR THE WIN OF THE

<XXI CORRESPONDENCE CHESS WORLDCHAMPIONSHIP> !!!!!

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.....(....//......)
......(.....¢¾...)
.......(..¢¾,...)
........(.....)
..........(..)
...........II
...........II
...........II
.....=======

May-13-07  Caissanist: If Piket really did play Oosterman's games then his opening repertoire has undergone a huge change in a relatively short time. Piket never played the Najdorf Sicilian as black, and only rarely opened 1.e4 as white.
May-17-07  Manic: This is the guy who is our opponent in the next Chessgames challenge right?
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