Author: Jeroen van Dorp
Date: 08:20:10 07/31/02
[D]r7/1p2ppkp/6p1/p2n4/Pn6/1r1P1P2/1P1Q2PP/1K1R3R w - - 0 21 Draw agreed. What does your program play in this situation? J.H. Donner, who died in 1988, was an avid opponent of the "chess playing calculator". They can't play chess, was his opinion. The same goes for women, he stated, because they "lack intuition". Inclined to react - don't feel obliged, he won't hear you anymore, and it is said that those not insulted by Donner didn't exist. So much for that. Recently a new Dutch edition of The King (De Koning - schaakstukken) - a collection of his columns in various Dutch magazines was published, and in one of the pieces from 1975 he tells the story about the above position. It's from a game between Browne and Genna Sosonko on Hoogovens 1975, and he agreed with Browne that the draw (a white queen against two black knights) tends to ridicule. Are those two knights really worth a queen? He then starts analyzing, and concludes it's a draw indeed. However, some months later he visits the Noordoostpolder, somewhere in the Netherlands (I'll be heading there tomorrow, that's why the piece caught my eye:)) and on a tournament there, in Emmeloord, some anonymous chess player came to Donner and asked him "what would black do if white would have played 21.Qc1?" Donner realized that this must be the solution and analyzes again; then he wonders if Fischer would have found the move, and is pretty sure Petrosjan would have been able to. Given his disdain for "chess playing calculators" it's maybe interesting what todays versions of them produce as answer. I put the position in Fritz 7 and watched the outcome. Maybe Donner was also wrong about women and chess. J.
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