1st of July: sunny, quite hot - indeed, unsual weather for Amsterdam.
Max Euwe Centrum
- Official site for all supported languages (English version section)
- Description on museum.nl
- There's no description available on amsterdam.info
There are lockers at the entrance, of course. However, I noticed them only when leaving.
Pictures are allowed, of course.
Useful info: Max Euwe - wikipedia description
My opinion on Max Euwe Centrum
Very small museum, but nice. I liked it.
Very friendly staff.
There hardly are any visitors. Hey you tourists, don't you like chess? :p
The explanation written on the walls is in Dutch only, but there's available a printed English translation which you have to return on leaving.
The staff also asked me to write something in their guestbook when leaving. I did, because I wanted to congratulate them for their good work. Home I realized I forgot writing that we have a very good Romanian chess player now - Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu. If interested, feel free to check the ratings of all best & currently active Romanian chess players.
People playing chess in Max Euwe Plein
After visiting the museum, I spent about 40 minutes in the public square (obviously called Max Euwe Plein) next to the museum, where there always are some 2 people playing chess on that huge board.
This time 2 guys were playing. Quite cool. It appeared that the white was going to win: it had both the initiative (or should we say it never allowed black to take initiative? :D) and slightly better pieces on the table (it had sacrificed a knight to capture a tower); towards the end, it also captured black's queen, sacrificing a tower. But... in the end... black managed to check him back and forth between the same 2 positions, because white's king was trapped in a 2 squares area :) ... and you know what repeated checking in the same positions means... indeed, draw... Quite an expected draw black has managed to pull, if you ask the amateur that I am with respect to chess :)
Again, tourists passing by take a 30 seconds look, smile, take some 2-3 pictures of themselves with the huge board as background and leave... Come on, people, stop & analyze, visit the museum etc. you know.
View Netherlands (by Liviu) in a larger map
Conclusions
Yes, visit Max Euwe Centrum if you are passionate about chess and/or in mood for something different. Also, take the time to watch a bit of the game people publicly play in the square - it's fun and they seem pretty good at it!
No comments:
Post a Comment