Jan Hein Donner

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Johannes Hendrikus "Jan Hein" Donner (July 6, 1927 – November 27, 1988) was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. Donner was born in The Hague and won the Dutch Championship three times: 1954, 1957, and 1958. He earned the GM title in 1959. He is the uncle of former Dutch justice minister, Piet Hein Donner.

[edit] Quotes

“I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. Give me a bad position, I will defend it. Openings, endgames, complicated positions, dull draws, I love them and I will do my very best. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them.” — Hein Donner

(On playing the Black pieces against the move 1.e4) "I don't like this move. And they know it." - Hein Donner. The Master Game BBC2

"The game of chess has never been held in great esteem by the North Americans. Their culture is steeped in deeply anti-intellectual tendencies. They pride themselves in having created the game of poker. It is their national game, springing from a tradition of westward expansion, of gun-slinging skirt chasers who slept with cows and horses. They distrust chess as a game of Central European immigrants with a homesick longing for clandestine conspiracies in quiet coffee houses. Their deepest conviction is that bluff and escalation will achieve more than scheming and patience (witness their foreign policy)." - Hein Donner.