Dirk van Foreest

Dirk van Foreest
Personal information
Born3 May 1862
Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands
Died24 February 1956(1956-02-24) (aged 93)
Oosthuizen, Netherlands
Chess career
CountryNetherlands

Jonkheer Dirk van Foreest (3 May 1862 – 24 February 1956) was a Dutch chess master. The elder brother of Arnold van Foreest, he thrice won Dutch Championship (in 1885, 1886, and 1887). He also took fifth place in 1884 and took second place, behind Rudolf Loman, in 1888. He is the great-great-granduncle of Jorden van Foreest, who won the Dutch Championship in 2016.

By profession, van Foreest was a medical doctor, and Max Euwe once said he could have been World Champion if he had dedicated himself fully to chess.

On 26 March 1949, at the age of 86, van Foreest played an exhibition game against the 84-year-old Jacques Mieses in The Hague; the Sicilian Paulsen ended after 20 moves. Their combined age of 170 years is often cited as among the highest on record in master-level tournament play. Mieses annotated the game himself in the British Chess Magazine the following June.

References

  1. ↑ Dirk van Foreest
  2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20091028082835/http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/amster.htm Amsterdam and Chess
  3. ↑ Welcome to the Chessmetrics siteArchived 14 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ McGourty, Colin (30 August 2016). "17-year-old Van Foreest wins Dutch title". Chess24.
  5. ↑ Een wonderlijk Gronings schaakgezin
  6. ↑ Jonkheer van 17 zet dynastie met schaaktitel voort
  7. ↑ British Chess Magazine, Vol. 69, No. 6, June 1949, pp. 178–179.