Baboon: Thanks for the advices, I am relatively new to actively using chessgames.com, so much appreciated. As for my connection, I did research on this man, who seems to be a forgotten pioneer in the Dutch chess scene. Okay, I will post the text here: its more like two pages, but it is a bio:
In the early 1800s chess in the Netherlands was a generally little regarded pastime for the select few. The rare attempts to set up associations or even a magazine on chess invariably failed for lack of interest, material and finances. Enter, Willem Jan Louis Verbeek (1820-1888).
Willem, or “W.J.L. Verbeek”, as he is almost invariably referred to in literature, lived a busy and remarkably full life in 19th century Holland. By the tender age of 23, he already ran a doctor’s practice, and also headed a family growing in time to 9 children. Finding a surfeit of spare time on his hands nonetheless, he became increasingly involved in the local chess scene, and eventually also initiated and presided over a choir association.
In 1844 Willem founded the chess association Sissa, named after a mythical brahman believed to have invented the game of chess in India. Soon after, the idea of a chess magazine developed, and was given the same name as the association. In 1847 Willem published Sissa’s first issue. In spite of financial difficulties, negative publicity, and similar misfortunes which had doomed previous such efforts, Willem’s tireless and skillful efforts, together with a grateful and loyal audience throughout the country, enabled the magazine to last for a remarkable 27 years.
In that time, a chess federation did not exist in the Netherlands. So, Sissa, mainly through Willem’s ceaseless endeavors, unofficially performed the services of one: it connected players throughout the country, organized and reported on tournaments, informed the audience of games and developments both nationally and internationally, contributed to uniformising the game’s rules, and contributed to popularizing chess in the Netherlands. A highlight amongst these achievements was the first national chess tournament in the Netherlands, organized in 1858 on Willem’s initiative in Nijmegen.
In the midst of doing all of that, Willem also did what he liked most of all: he played lots of chess himself. 80+ games that he played in the period from 1849 to 1866 have been recovered and analysed. While a few of his games were mere demonstration games with newbies against whom he typically played at odds, many games were interesting games with his fellow chess players and invitees (e.g. C.N. Olijphant, founder of chess association Palamedes Leiden), and some ten games were against Holland’s strongest players such as C.E.A. Dupré and G. Dufresne. Willem even played a couple of games against Serafino Dubois, an Italian master that shortly lived in the Netherlands and who at that time was playing for over a decade in the international chess top. These games are being gradually uploaded to chessgames.com.
Willem was a vocal advocate of gambit games, and he played true to his conviction. Indeed, his style in the games reflects the romantic chess typical of the 19th century. From the annotations in the primary sources one can find that, typical for Willem’s inquisitive nature, various games upon termination were replayed from a certain position onwards (with the result, by the way, usually in Willem’s favor).
Ample demonstration of his playing strength is given by his four-game blindfold simul he played in 1861 in his hometown; and his captainship of many correspondence games he played in consultancy with his fellow Sissa members against other chess associations. With Willem at the helm, Sissa instilled fear amongst chess associations in the region, who at that time considered Wijk bij Duurstede “the cradle of chess”.
Besides games, Willem produced also numerous chess puzzles, a large number of which were published in his periodical. The quality of these puzzles is dubious by today’s standards, but at that time they were highly regarded, and solutions were hotly debated by the readers.
Willem received various honorary memberships from chess associations throughout the country, which were typically awarded to “strong chess players with outstanding contribution to the game of chess”. Findings corroborate Willem’s reputation of being a fairly strong player. Indeed, if modern chess titles had been awarded at that time in the Netherlands, most likely he would have been a ‘master’.
It must be observed though that in Willem’s time the level of chess in the Netherlands was not at par with the level of the international chess scene that contained the likes of Staunton, Steinitz, Anderssen, Blackburne, to mention but a few famous players. Benefitting from Willem’s extensive reporting on the developments in the international chess scene, the Dutch chess did work its way up though and the first Dutch players were starting to be able to hold their own internationally by the end of the nineteenth century.
Kibitzing
