Joop van Oosterom

Infobox chess player


playername=Joop van Oosterom
|caption=
birthname=Joop van Oosterom
country=NED
datebirth=birth date and age|1937|12|12
placebirth=Hilversum, Netherlands
datedeath=
placedeath=
title=
worldchampion=World Correspondence Chess Champion, 2003–2004
womensworldchampion=
rating=
peakrating=

Joop van Oosterom (born 12 December 1937, Hilversum) is a Dutch billionaire and chess enthusiast. For many years he has staged the annual Melody Amber tournaments in Monaco, where world-class Grandmasters play rapid and blindfold games.

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. 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." [ [http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/admag/oosterom.htm Wereldkampioen delegeren] , by Tim Krabbé, originally published in the "Algemeen Dagblad", April 2, 2005.] He didn't stop at only one World Correspondence Chess Championship title, he also won the 21th World Championship Final in Correspondence Chess, being the actual Champion of ICCF.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkxrtLZvC2Q Oosterom vs Timmerman 1996 Multimedia annotated game]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdn7QsXIr8o Oosterom vs Timmerman 1999 Multimedia annotated game]