Joop van Oosterom

Joop van Oosterom
Full name Joop van Oosterom
Country  Netherlands
Born December 12, 1937
Hilversum, Netherlands
World Champion World Correspondence Chess Champion, 2003–2004

Joop van Oosterom (born 12 December 1937, Hilversum) is a Dutch billionaire, chess and billiards enthusiast. For many years he has staged the annual Melody Amber tournaments in Monaco, where world-class Grandmasters play rapid and blindfold games. It is named after his first daughter Melody Amber. His other daughter was the eponym to the Crystal Kelly Cup, an invitational tournament for three-cushion carom billiards, which has been held between 1994 and 2011 mostly in Monte Carlo and Nice.[1]

Van Oosterom was a strong correspondence chess player, but suffered a severe stroke some years ago. Nevertheless, he concluded the world correspondence chess championship successfully and became the 18th World Champion in Correspondence Chess. This achievement, however, has been criticized, as at the time of the championship van Oosterom had hired grandmaster Jeroen Piket as his personal secretary. Earlier, van Oosterom had had two Dutch International Masters on his payroll whose job was to analyse his correspondence games. Chess author Tim Krabbé wrote: "The Turk was operated by William Schlumberger, Mephisto was operated by Isidore Gunsberg, Ajeeb was operated by Harry Pillsbury and Joop van Oosterom is operated by Jeroen Piket."[2] He didn't stop at only one World Correspondence Chess Championship title, he also won the 21st World Championship Final in Correspondence Chess, being the actual Champion of the ICCF.

Notes

  1. ↑ Frits Bakker (2011-06-20). "Crystal Kelly Cup: Farewell to a phenomenon". Kozoom.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-09. Retrieved 2012-10-09.
  2. ↑ Wereldkampioen delegeren, by Tim Krabbé, originally published in the Algemeen Dagblad, April 2, 2005.
Preceded by
Norway Ivar Bern		 World Correspondence Chess Champion
2003–2004 		Succeeded by
France Christophe Léotard
Preceded by
Finland Pertti Lehikoinen		 World Correspondence Chess Champion
2008-2010 		Succeeded by
Russia Aleksandr Surenovich Dronov

External links