Unfortunately, the Olympiad clashed this year, so the top players were busy there, and also hotel accommodation was not easy to come by, as it was a holiday weekend. This year’s event was named the “Martin Walop Memorial”, to honour a founder member and the club’s president who had sadly died during the past year.30 players gathered for the event in a rather nice pub, adjoining the red-light district. A nearby café had a sign proclaiming “No drugs”, which comes as a slight surprise to visitors. There were a reasonable number of “colourful characters” about, but I did not feel at all threatened when near the venue, possible as a result of the open nature of these various business interests. There was a sex-shop near my hotel, with its various wares clearly displayed to passers-by. As prostitution and cannabis are still technically illegal in England, and there are outraged letters to local newspapers when sex shops open, there is a sort of “underground”, defensive feeling associated with them, which is absent where such activities are accepted. Certainly I felt safer there than I have in some areas of London.

IM Maarten Solleveld

The tournament was a seven round Swiss, with 20 minutes for each player, with the starting position being selected by computer before each round. So all games in a round featured the same starting position. The pieces are randomly placed on the back rank, with the provisos that the bishops have to be on differently coloured squares, and the king is placed between the two rooks.

White and black have the same set-up. Normal laws of chess apply, except for castling. In round 6, the set-up from a-h, was RKNRBQNB. Imagine you have developed both knights, the queen, and the bishop from e1. You have not moved either rook or the king, so here you can go “0-0”, and move the king to g1, and the R from d1-f1, as one move. The bishop on h1 is not in the way…. “0-0-0” is not possible here, but say you first play Rd1-d2, then you can go “0-0-0”, and play Ra1-d1 and Kb1-c1. An extreme example arose in round 2, when the king was on b and the rook on f, so to play “0-0”, you just played Kb1-g1. This can come as a shock if you have a queenside attack going, as the king suddenly disappears! The randomness has not entirely eliminated opening theory as the starting positions are numbered 1-960, and apparently grandmasters have been heard saying to each other, “I found a new move in 512”.

Monique van der Grient wins women's price

Most of the experienced players spent about 5 minutes on the first move, just to get their bearings, and used the classical chess principles of development of pieces in the early stage of the game.In round two, (RKBBQRNN from a-h) against Dutch IM Hans Bohm, I cheerfully started 1.d4 d5, 2.Bf4 (the bishop was actually on c1!) to pin his c-pawn, as the king was on b8. Unfortunately, he then went 2….Ng6, which is normally impossible of course. After 3.Bg3, I am forced to grovel with f3 and Nf2, although I made the best of a bad job with a later e4, and got a good attack on the queenside, but it all fell apart later.

Amusingly enough, round 7’s starting position was BNRQKBNR, so I was able as black to almost play a Queen’s Indian Defence, as 1.d4 Nf6, 2.c4 e6, 3.Nc3 b6! This is usually impossible because of 4.e4, but here the bishop is already on the long diagonal. This gives some idea of the subtleties involved.

The final table shows that the higher-rated players tended to finish near the top. IM Martin Solleveld raced to 6/6, and although he lost in the last round to Hans Capel (5/6), he still won on tie-break. I managed 4/7 for 11th place, which was OK for a first attempt, but I have detected a few ways not to play. I had the satisfaction of being top non-Dutch player, but that was slightly tempered by the fact I was the only non-Dutch player….

Playing venue in the traditional Amsterdam Pub “De Bekeerde Suster"

 

It was a really enjoyable event in a busy pub. It has to be said the light was a bit gloomy, but it is all part of the atmosphere. The event was really well-organised and the opposition were friendly. A bunch of us went for dinner afterwards, and then a few more beers. If you want to play a fascinating variant of chess in a great atmosphere, then head for Amsterdam next May.

See Fischer Z’s website at http://ourworld.compuserve.nl/_ht_a/fzreykjavik/index.htm