First of all, let me thank you for what you do for chess. All those
files, all those games for free downloading, those ratings lists from South
Dakota to Afghanistan... I must seem an ungrateful idiot if between all
those hundreds of thousands of games, those millions of moves on your great
site, I'm complaining about just one tiny little mistake that no one else
would ever notice, that no one but me would ever bother about.
But it's there, that mistake. And it hurts my pride.
So please, please dear University of Pittsburgh Chess Club, correct it. Maybe
I'm not much of a chess player, (although a few of my games made it into
the databases, and you still credit me with 2275 which seems a bit inflated,
but thanks anyway) and yes, I had to turn to chess writing to express my
love for the game - but you can't take from me what is rightfully mine.
I did play a few good games, I did beat a few masters. Oh, long ago, but
the older the treasure, the more cherished it is, and the less you want
to see it blemished.
Your terrible, your unforgivable mistake concerns the summer of 1967.
I had just, without much success, played my first Dutch championship, and
now I played the 'IBM Masters Reserves'. Tough customers there; Hartoch,
Piket sr., Crabbendam, Van Baarle (I know, I know, unknowns to you, most
of them) and a 15-year old I had already heard much about: Jan Timman.
He was the national junior champion, recognized as one of the most gifted
players ever in Holland; clearly a future grandmaster. It was the first
time I actually met him and, in the third round, I played him.
It was quite a struggle.
1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5 e6 4.Nbd2 Be7 5.e3 b6 6.c3 Bb7 7.Ne5
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A draw, Pitt Chess Club. A draw. Not a win for White, but a draw.
But what do we find, in 1999, in the Timman file at the University of Pittsburgh Chess Club?
Timman - Krabbe, 1967, 86 moves, 1-0
Look at the position, Pitt. Is that a win for White? When he already repeated moves? Have you ever seen a game where a player resigned in a position that had occurred before? Which is only a few moves from where two bare Kings will remain?
Let me guess what happened. You saw this game Timman - Unknown, 1967, 86 moves, draw, and you thought: draw? Timman, against Unknown? Isn't that the patzer who writes about castlings at move 48, endgames of 4 Knights against Queen, record series of checks, and who thinks 16...Nc6 by Spassky was the greatest move ever played? There must be a mistake. Of course he lost that game.
Well, I did not lose. I fought for ten hours, and I drew.
I want my draw.
Dear Pitt Chess Club, I just know you are going to correct this mistake,
and I will reward you with a little story.
This was my first game against Timman. From 1967
to 1971, by which time he had become too strong for me to ever again meet
him over the board, we played 6 official games. My score, even when you
realise Timman was between 15 and 19, and I was between 24 and 28, was
not that bad: three draws, and three losses.
Later, we became good friends, and even composed
an endgame study together. One time, many years after we had last played each other,
maybe around 1990, I mentioned our six games to him. I knew the results,
but when I wanted to describe the games, I found I could only remember
five. Timman then immediately described the sixth - opening, type of play,
type of tactics, length.
I was baffled. For him, that game had only been
one of the many he played before his real career started, while for me,
any game against an obvious future champion like him was something of an
event. And he remembered it.
© Tim Krabbé, 1999