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Subject: Re: In memorandum - Jan Louwman

Author: Thorsten Czub

Date: 15:03:44 12/04/02

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On December 04, 2002 at 16:39:23, Ed Schröder wrote:

>Today december the 4th 2002 a remarkable man died regarded by many as the no.1
>expert of the computer chess community.

this is a very sad moment.
i am hurt too.

>Not so long ago Jan's wife Coby passed away, Jan's help and stay. Although he
>did not say this has hit Jan as a sledgehammer blow, those who have known him
>knew, it certainly might have speed up his - still - unexpected death.

i did not know this too. i can imagine how he must have felt. she was always
a great help for him.

When i remember Jan Louwmann and his wife, i see them how we met (again) in
Paris. Sitting in the the restaurant of the tower.

he telling anecdotes the whole evening.

and later we took the taxi. it was one of those "private" taxi drivers.
in a VW Golf, jan, his wife, peter schreiner, me took place.

the drive back to the hotel was very very dangerous. we had to suffer big
velocities and were thrown to the left side, to the right side...
but even in this car, he and his wife were great, funny, telling all kind of
jokes and peter and i respected this great man and his nice and friendly help.

he was the pope of netherland computerchess.
i remember talks about germans and netherlands, we had at the AEGON tournament.
there was always this memorial silence in the tournament hall. we discussed
how germans and dutch feel when this silent minute reminds us at the different
but similar experience we had in our history.

how can we fill this gap.

people connect people.
relations between people.

when those beloved people die, the relations , the connections die too.

i wish that we try not to lose those relationships, that it is not splitting us
apart. that we be together and - in the spirit jan would have liked - sit
together and enjoy our hobby. as a social group. telling those anecdotes jan
would have told, and remember him and his wife.

i can imagine how ed and others who have been very close to jan must feel
now.

i feel for you.


jan louwmann tried to get the best out of computerchess programs.
he stood behind the screens. or walked arround in the tournament hall. from
board to board. and i saw that he sees things
in an instant. he was not shallow. he did not say something just to say
something. HE saw the main things when he came behind you and stood only for
short time. you could see this in his eyes. in his face. he saw what is going
on. this is rare. only the very experienced ones do so.


i guess he must have done those things when i was playing with non electric toys
:-))


what a big loss.

i am sure next time we'll do a computerchess event, jan and his wife will watch
us from heaven. i am sure he has an autoplayer installed in heaven.
he can't live without it. God will have to make enough space for Jan's machines
!


Take care !



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