Some thoughts about GM Donner

This week I was reading a little bit in the Donner book "The King". Quite a fat book with anecdotes, stories and chess games.
One chapter is about a game Donner - Ree where Ree plays the Prins variation of the Gruenfeld Indian.
Many years ago the guy who taught me chess said that Donner had said that Prins could not distinguish a knight from a bishop. And Donner would be talking bad about all the Rees and Langewegs as if they were weak chess players, while at the same time Donner would lose against them !
Now not so long ago I read why Donner made that remark about Prins. They had played a match, and Donner, who was a huge fan of the bishop pair simply didn't understand that Prins would trade a bishop for a knight so easily in some games.

That puts another light on Donner's remark about Prins. And yes, Donner lost the match against Ree ! :)

www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=either&pid=&player=ree&pid2=&player2=donner&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=

LIFETIME RECORD:
Classical games: Hans Ree beat Jan Hein Donner 11 to 8, with 24 draws.
Including rapid/exhibition games: Hans Ree beat Jan Hein Donner 12 to 8, with 24 draws.
Only rapid/exhibition games: Hans Ree beat Jan Hein Donner 1 to 0.

Uncle Hein is the Guru. Actually he is Sarg0n‘s big idol. It takes a long time until one discovers what he really meant.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hein_Donner (just look at the quotes...)

I read „The King“ and the biography by Münninghoff (New in Chess) is yet to come.

"The King" is a wonderful book (pls get a copy, folks) ;-) And Jan Hein Donner was and is a legend. He also made it into world literature as he is a character in a famous Harry Mulisch novel (he is "Onno Quist"). And even though he was probably never Top Ten, his games at times are wonderful, lots to learn.
Thx for mentioning him.

Donner was controversial...
Racist, sexist...

@tpr Stop accusing people of stuff, no reason to be hateful. Let's focus on chess.

@Ctenophora_Cnidaria Direct quote from Donner (according to Wikipedia):

"The difference between the sexes is remarkable in chess, but not any more so, to my mind, than in any other field of cultural activity. Women cannot play chess, but they cannot paint either, or write, or philosophize. In fact, women have never thought or made anything worth considering."

I don't think calling him sexist is "hateful". He simply *was* sexist, by any definition of the word.

Just watching documentary The love for about Dutch chessplayers in 1979.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E48r-JTSAVM&ab_channel=ElKitch

They sure smoke a lot in documentary maybe not for kids :)

"Computers cannot play chess at all, and they will never be able to, at least not for the next two thousand years or so, for that would take a technology that is still far beyond the horizon ... ." Donner

@nosewithlegs No, it is hateful, because the original poster was just trying to discuss chess and games, and tpr had to bring up accusations of racism and sexism for no reason. It was completely irrelevant to the discussion, and irrelevant to chess. So yes he is being hateful and rude to the original poster. Imagine, someone wanted to talk about michael jackson's music, but then someone constantly talks about all the bad things he did, even though it is irrelevant to his music. tpr is being hateful to the OP not to Donner.