Teams that are underlined qualified for the play-offs.

This year, the set-up for the highest division of the Dutch team championship was changed greatly. Instead of playing on nine Saturdays throughout the year, as in the lower divisions, the masters played all together in one location on four weekends (in Amsterdam, Hengelo, Leeuwarden, and Rotterdam in that order) and one final round (in Utrecht). The top four teams qualified for the play-offs, which were held in Breda. The Breda team started as clear favourites and they were never in any real danger. In the last round of the regular competition, Magnus/BSG fielded a much weakened team and lost badly against ESGOO, which thereby secured a place in the play-offs.

I took the individual results from [1] and the games from [2]. Four Belgians played in this competition: Gurevich was part of the winning squad, Chuchelov took third place with Magnus/BSG, while both Winants and Jadoul played for Rotterdam. Their individual results are as below. Note that the Dutch team competition has no fixed board orders, so a player may well meet both much stronger and much weaker opponents. Doubtlessly, many Belgian players were active in the lower divisions. I found a few games by Belgians from division 1B, which I have included in the game file.

Wanted

• Not much.

Sources

1. Schaaknieuws 2000 Nos. 2-11
2. 365chess.com