Tim Krabbe and the World of Chess Curiosities

I'm writing just a few minutes after drawing my 4th round game in a 9-round classical tournament. The event isn't going well so far - I am yet to score a win with 2 draws and 2 losses. "A common tale among amateur/irregular tournament players" I half-heartedly chose to believe this to provide some solace. I play tournaments infrequently, and it's not like I put in time to train my chess or prepare for tournaments. But I'm hugely interested in all things surrounding chess - following top events, learning about historical chess figures, watching chess videos on YouTube, reading chess books, and so on. Feel like you're on the same boat? Well, today I want to tell you about someone whose work I found out about 1 year ago - Tim Krabbé.

Tim Krabbé is a strong chess player from Netherlands - one of their top 20 players at some point, with a peak rating of 2290. But this hardly describes what Krabbe does: he is a journalist, novelist, chess author, dabbled in acting for quite some time - chess player is like the bottom of the list! His novels have been translated to 16 languages, and five of his novels have been turned into movies. Discussing all the facets of Tim's career will easily require a whole book. But today I want to talk about the fantastic chess website he created - Tim Krabbe's Chess Oddities.

Want to know about the 110 greatest moves ever played? The Ultimate blunder? The discovery of the famous Saveedra position in 1895? Or maybe you would like to know about the famous Babson Task - you have to compose a mating problem where:

1. White makes the key move
2. Black defends by promoting a pawn to queen, rook, bishop or knight.
3. In each case, White is forced to promote to a queen, rook, bishop or knight respectively to force mate.

If any of this strikes your fancy, Tim Krabbe's chess website will leave you fanatically surfing for days to come.

I feel these are the kind of topics which may not be of interest to all chess players/enthusiasts. But for those who like it, this is a goldmine of rare chess content! Krabbe is around 80 years old now, and since June 1998 he started this website. His Open chess diary is also a joy to read! I should mention that Krabbe is also an excellent composer of chess studies and mating problems - you will find lots of discussions regarding chess compositions in the website. His work is a good reminder that chess is so much more than just playing - it's a vast world.

Tim Krabbe (left) meeting Leonid Yarosh (right) - the man who created the first successful Babson Task! Photo: RIck Goetzee

Ending on a different vein, the tournament I mentioned at the start of today's newsletter is the Chess for Everyone Rating tournament being held at Tamluk, West Bengal, India. We started Bangla ChessBase India, a regional language page of ChessBase India around 2 weeks ago. I'm playing the tournament, and covering it with photos, videos, and writeups on our new page! If you want to follow Chess news on Bangla, check out the link to our Facebook page below. - Himank Ghosh

GRENKE Classic R3-4: Richard Rapport increases his sole lead, Magnus and Keymer miss wins

Richard Rapport (ROU) increased his sole lead at GRENKE Chess Classic 2024. He drew against Vincent Keymer (GER) in an interesting battle in the third round. Then he defeated Daniel Fridman (GER) in round 4 to stay a full point ahead of the rest 3/4. The world no.1 Magnus Carlsen (NOR) drew against the reigning world champion, Ding Liren (CHN) in a highly anticipated match up. Carlsen missed a win against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) in the following round. Speaking of misses, Keymer had the biggest miss of the day when he could not manage to beat the world champion despite having a decisive advantage for the better part of the endgame. Classic Round 5 and 6, Open Round 1 will start today from 6:30 p.m. local time, 11 p.m. IST. Photos: Angelika Valkova/GRENKE Chess Classic

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Srinath Narayanan dominates ChessBase India Club 2nd Anniversary Tournament 2024

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