After a few days' silence, Donner would sometimes frankly admit: 'A few readers may have noticed that reporting in these columns came to an abrupt halt late last week, to be replaced by bare results. When a tournament did not go too well for Donner, it would happen that the reporting simply stopped. It is the main reason on the one hand that Donner's pieces arc characterized by such refreshing subjectivity, but on the other there was always a danger that the readers, who expected regular reporting from their newspaper, were sorely disappointed.
This participatory reporting had its advantages and its disadvantages. But this is a drawback that does not apply to chess journalists in general and least of all to Donner: at many tournaments, he was both a participant and a reporter. Football reporters have their place on the stand they cannot kick a ball themselves or dive to the post, as a rule. It is up to the sports writer to make the event important, to attract and guide the public's attention and to present the simple facts in a colourful way.' And then Donner says approvingly: 'Mr Straat used to invoke Homer as the patron saint of all sports journalists: he turned the crude slaughter between two gangs of hooligans for a common whore into an immortal epic.' Donner also pointed out that chess reporting was different from other sports journalism in one important aspect. This applies to anyone writing about sports, whether it is football, draughts or chess. Donner soon developed a strictly personal view on how such chess reporting should be handled: 'The man who takes up the pen to report on a sport event always does so in deep inner uncertainty, because he is by no means convinced himself of the essential importance of such an event and is constantly struggling against the overwhelming sense of his own absurdity. It was for this same newspaper that he first began reporting on tournaments and the matches for the world championship. From 1955 onwards, Donner regularly contributed a chess column to the Saturday edition of the daily De Tijd, under the remarkably pessimistic headline Those Who Play at Chess Must Look out for Mate'. 'Not the strongest will win, not the one who is objectively the best thinker, but the one who is the most tenacious fighter, as is also the case in life', wrote Donner at the age of 2 3. In this early article from 1950, which appeared under the title 'On the Justice of Chess', there is a lot of what would later be recognized as 'pure Donner'. One of his first chess pieces - and the first in this book - is to be found in the club magazine of Discendo Discimus (oo), the club in the Hague for which Donncr used to play. As a chess columnist and reporter, Donner contributed to several publications.
Donner has written about chess since We have resisted the temptation - great though it was - to include work dealing with other subjects. DONNER AMSTERDAM AUGUST 1987ĩ INTRODUCTION TO 'DE K ONING ' This book is an anthology from the more than one thousand articles and short pieces that J.H. Everyone has pity on me now, but at the time I was that evil chess player, who would not stick to his last. It should be kept in mind that I was not particularly held in high esteem by the public, when I wrote these pieces that they collected. 1 thank Messrs Pam and Krabbe for their vast labour. The time of pushing forward organizationally is over now: sport is a thing of the past. The time 0 look out for something else has long since come by then, but you would rather bite off your tongue than say so. For any further questions about photo credits, please contact us at Translation: Richard de Weger Production: Peter Boel, Anton Schermer Printing: A-D Druk BV, Zeist, The Netherlands Printed in the Netherlands ISBNħ PREFACE TO 'DE KONING' On 24 August 1983, I suffered a brain haemorrhage, just in time, because when vou are 56 you do not play chess as well as you did when you were 26. Cover design: Steven Boland Photos: Anefo I Spaarnestad Fotoarchief (I, 2, 5, 8, 9 and 1 1), Spaarnestad Fotoarchief (7), ANP- Dick Coersen (3), Wim van Rossem (4), Nationaal Foto Persbureau (6), New In Chess archives (I 0, 12), Michel Linssen (13). No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher. Donner Introduction by Tim Krabbe and Max Pam Published by New In Chess, Alkmaar, The Netherlands All rights reserved. 5 J.H.DONNER THE KING CHESS PIECES Collected and introduced by Tim Krabbe and Max Pam 2006 New In Chess AlkmaarĦ 2006 Erven J.H.
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