Chess in Apeldoorn

An article by Karel van Delft

Nowadays, the Dutch town of Apeldoorn has an enthusiastic chess culture.
The city has about 160.000 inhabitants, which equals about one percent of the Dutch population.
The top team of the local Schaakstad Apeldoorn club (sponsored name: MuConsult Apeldoorn) is one of the best teams in the top league of the Dutch competition. Remarkably, eight of the team's ten players originate from Apeldoorn. Because the ten teams in the top league consist of ten players, statistically speaking, only one Apeldoorn player would be expected.
This can only be explained as a result of a stimulating long lasting chess culture, with a lot of attention for training, activities and tournaments, with an equal amount of attention for contacts between top players and youth (simuls, tournaments, training).
In Apeldoorn, various chess organizations work well together. First of all, there is a lively club, Schaakstad Apeldoorn (schaakstad-apeldoorn.nl). Next, there is a school chess competition in which some twenty primary school chess clubs participate. The Schaakweek foundation (schaakweek.nl) stimulates numerous activities. For the past three months sites show calendars with almost daily online tournaments for kids and adults. E.g. each week a chess master (GM, IM, FM) gave a free online simul.

There is also the Schaakacademie Apeldoorn (Apeldoorn Chess Academy, schaakacademieapeldoorn.nl), coordinated by Karel van Delft. This academy organizes lessons at schools, and private and group training for senior players, youth (talents), and special needs groups (e.g. autism). The Chess Academy publishes a free, weekly online newsletter with lots of photos providing a good impression of the local chess culture. Also, there is much attention for psychology and didactics. For an impression, visit schaakacademieapeldoorn.nl/nieuwsbrieven

In addition to this, for the past six years Apeldoorn hosted a national championship especially for intellectually disabled people (Down syndrome, autism, etc.)

Local members of Apeldoorn's top team also acting as trainers (online as well as offline) include: IM Stefan Kuipers, IM Thomas Beerdsen, IM Merijn van Delft (author of Mastering Positional Sacrifices, published by New in Chess), IM Arthur van de Oudeweetering (author of several books on pattern recognition published by New in Chess), IM Nico Zwirs, and GM Roeland Pruijssers (the latter two recently created a DVD about the Open Sicilian, published by Chessbase).

Other Apeldoorn top team players include IM Max Warmerdam (streaming on Twitch) and GM Artur Jussupow, who plays each year a competition game for the club since he was involved in 1999 with IM Mark Dvoretsky, GM Uwe Bönsch, IM Yochanan Afek and GM Loek van Wely in the Connection 1 Chess Experience in Apeldoorn. This was a five-day training and playing event with the best youth players of The Netherlands, Germany and Israel (see http://chesstalent.com/free-items).

Karel van Delft is a psychologist, journalist and chess trainer. He maintains various sites:
www.schaakacademieapeldoorn.nl
www.schaaktalent.nl
www.chesstalent.com (in English)
www.schaken-en-autisme.nl (Dutch, English, Spanish, Danish, Italian)