Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 05:39:15 12/05/02
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On December 04, 2002 at 19:18:55, Ron Langeveld wrote: >Sorry to hear about that Vince. At this point in time I can only feel surprised, >even though one can see it coming down the road. Having met you both I can only >say that it is hard to imagine two people more passionate about cc than you two >guys. I know you two had a mutual "thing" and I can recall the things you could >say about each other. Sometimes I wondered how two people being this "convinced" >(no pun intended) could get along so silently. > >You are the closest thing to a relative of Jan on this forum and I want to >extend my condolences to you in here. There's is no doubt in my mind that I will >keep seeing Jan's dedication in your efforts. You may have lost his fellowship >but you won't lose his spirit. > >Ron Well thanks Ron and many others, We must however take into account that his brother is still alive and much closer family. Jan Louwman was married to Coby Diepeveen. We figured out in my family tree that she is family of me around 1890 when that branch left this town (Veenendaal, around 3000+ diepeveen's live around this town), so not very close, but still family :) But indeed i knew Jan pretty well. Despite that i had him on the phone a lot, i didn't visit him last months too much. Perhaps once or twice a month. Another amazing thing for perhaps americans, but if you live on the other side of the country (i live near the german border), then even a distance of exactly 80 KM (which takes because of the traffic lights and speeds of 130 at the highway at least a full hour), is considered pretty much in Netherlands. Yet Jan had contact with so many, let's be clear here. It will be interesting to see some stories get written down which happened with and around Jan Louwman, especially at the different tournaments, where Jan wasn't holy either of course, and busy to win. Also persons who have nothing to do with Jan will enjoy all those stories. Not always it was nice what happened of course, but that is what happens in tournaments. I remember even his last 2 tournaments where he operated himself that both Gian Carlo Pascutto (Sjeng) and Stefan Meyer Kahlen (Shredder) came very upset to me and tell me that they heard mouse clicks when they turned their back and didn't trust the nature of those clicks knowing Jan directly moved then that recapture move. Though i would never do such a thing myself, i know if any professional chess player would be operating there then that person would be clicking each 10 minutes for a move to be forced :) I always had to laugh loud hearing that, knowing that the average nerd, not exactly used to play against people who like to win at all costs, now got confronted with a deaf impatient 78 year old who did like to win. Note that Jan, despite being a good operator last 2 years wasn't a very a quick operator anymore, so they always won back that operating time by moving default moves quicker; so there was really nothing to worry about. Also without exception Jan operated last few years programs which had major bugs in their time control. I remember big time control bugs in Kallisto, Nimzo, Insomniac. And then i probably do not even know half of the truth. A big fight of Jan with Bart Weststrate i remember. It was world champs 1997. DIEP blitzing against Kallisto in paris. Round 1. Poor Bart put the time control at like 5 minutes whole game (total level 7 0) and my DOS version (the standard at the time) was graphical so i could operate way quicker than most of todays windows applications which have all kind of worries (last few years i operated basically diep in textmode in blitz). I for sure was quicker in these years than i am now (with 29 already considered slow in blitz when i join a blitz tournament). So Bart really didn't stand a chance against my operating speed there. Of course let's consider also the position. DIEP was incredible lucky to get a position which played easy for it. Fail low after fail low with kallisto didn't do it very good. DIEP was up +2.0 and had a great pawn formation. Kallisto the receiving end. Bart forfeited at move 25 or something. Jan wasn't happy at all with this. Before the game he already said time control should be put at 3 minutes whole game instead of 5. Completely correctly. This was typical Jan. He had tested already before the championship himself how much time he lost for a blitz game. The average programmer never does that. They simply forfeit, which would be not acceptible to any GM in case they feel they have a good chance to end high in a tournament. Jan was a winner simply with a GM mentality. No detail was skipped *ever*. Another thing Jan had noticed, already 6 months before the world championship 1997. He noticed that the time control was like 60 in 30 moves then 1 hour for 60 moves or something, with as a result that sometimes a program would do 20 book moves then take for a few moves (10 in this case) like way over 6 minutes a move. Then suddenly drop to 1 minute a move. Of course not a very good division of the time. Jan warned every programmer he knew (he warned me for sure) to take care of that. In world championship 1997 i played with diep against Fritz. Diep had black. It was a russian mainline. I didn't like it. Diep was pretty quick out of book. Fritz wasn't. Fritz kept in book up until move 25 or something. By then DIEP had made a mistake, so had a bad position. Also search depths were dominating in 1997 still. If you didn't get above 9 ply, then forget it. I got around 8 ply. DIEP planned a horrible move but lucky Fritz divided its time by 5 and used up 12 minutes. Enough for DIEP to get 10 ply, and a decent move after which DIEP kept it a draw. But it was Jan to give the tip to assume the base thinking time instead of using up the remaining time! Best regards, Vincent
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