The winners of the Patzer tournament were Reinderman and Kasimdzhanov with 9-2, who were far ahead of 3-5 Shaked, Kobalia and van der Wiel with 6-5.

Complete results of the "A" tournament were Kramnik and Anand with 8.5, followed by Shirov, Adams and Timman with 7.5, Topalov, Karpov, Gelfand, Judit Polgar and Piket with 6.5, Salov with 5.5, Nijboer with 5.0, Van Wely with 4.5 and Van Der Sterren with 4.0.

In spite of the ups and downs of the tournament, in which first Kramnik and then Anand appeared to be running away with it, the end result proved the validity of the rating system, with most of the players finishing roughly in the order of rating.

A notable exception was Timman, who finished much higher than his rating predicted. However, Timman had one advantage: In invitational tournaments such as this one, the players know that if they do not play exciting chess and try hard to win, they will likely not be invited back next year. For example, former World Champion Boris Spassky, who always takes a quick draw against grandmaster opponents, does not get invited to these events any more.

However, Timman from Holland, unlike the other players, knows that he will be invited back next year to this tournament in the Netherlands, so he did not show reluctance in agreeing to quick draws.

I believe that the Hoogovens' tournament represents a great breakthrough for all chess players.

I started following and reporting on this tournament only because I received so many requests for information. I did not even know that this event was taking place until the third round. After I set up a web page to follow this tournament, I started receiving several hundred hits per day. There were other personal web sites set up around the world to follow this event, presumably for the same reason. Finally, there was the Hoogovens official web site, upon which we all relied, but which was so overloaded with traffic that it was hard to reach while the games were in progress.

The problem has always been how to make chess into a spectator sport. Even at major world class chess events, there have rarely been more than a few dozen spectators or a few hundred at the most. One journalist wrote: "Watching a chess tournament is about as exciting as watching paint dry."

However, now we have solved this problem, because this Hoogovens' tournament had tens of thousands of live spectators around the world with their eyes glued to their computer, analyzing the games and waiting for the next moves to be played.

Hoogovens' has been holding this chess event annually for the past 60 years. Yet, before this year's event, I had never heard of Hoogovens, or if I did I did not remember the name, or perhaps I thought that Hoogovens was the name of a small town in Holland.

Now I know that Hoogovens in an industrial machinery company, and you can be sure that I will got out and buy a Hoogovens product, as soon as I can find out what that product is.

Similarly, all of us chess players can start approaching banks and financial institutions which have traditionally preferred to sponsor chess tournaments and demonstrate that with the new World Wide Web technology we can get instant recognition for their products around the world by setting up a web site for their chess tournament.

Now, let's all go out and get rich with this idea.

Sam Sloan

PS In my personal life, I may have had a major favorable development overnight. Is appears that the judge who has been hounding me for the past 12 years and who had my daughter kidnapped, is now forced off the bench and is no longer a judge as of midnight last night. If this proves to be true, my life as a perpetual fugitive from justice, constantly waiting for the next knock on the door, may be over and I will be able to live normally and get my family back again.

I have added music to my web site at http://www.ishipress.com/hoogoven.htm and to all my other web pages, but this greatly slows down transmission time, particularly for users of NETSCAPE. I would like feedback as to whether I should keep the music or get rid of it.

The amazing scores of 9-2 by the two previously unknown grandmasters (at least I had never heard of them) who won the potzer tournament should not be overlooked. Their opponents had an average rating of 2502, giving them each a performance rating of over 2750. Kasimdzhanov was running away with the tournament, until Reinderman defeated him in the last round game to become a grandmaster.

Here is an exciting game from that event.

[Final Position]

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 g6 3. e4 d6 4. d4 Bg7 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nge2 Nc6 7. O-O Nd7 8. Be3 e5 9. d5 Nd4 10. Bc2 Nxc2 11. Qxc2 Kh8 12. h3 a6 13. Rac1 Qe7 14. Ng3 h5 15. Qd2 Rg8 16. b4 Nf8 17. c5 Bd7 18. Qc2 h4 19. Nge2 g5 20. c6 bxc6 21. dxc6 Be6 22. Nd5 Qd8 23. Qd2 Bh6 24. f3 Ng6 25. Nec3 Nf4 26. a4 Rb8 27. b5 axb5 28. axb5 Bxd5 29. exd5 f5 30. Bxf4 exf4 31. Rfe1 g4 32. Re6 Qg5 33. hxg4 fxg4 34. Ne4 Qg7 35. fxg4 Rxb5 36. Re1 Rbb8 37. Nf6 f3 38. Qf2 Rgf8 39. Nh5 Qg5 40. gxf3 Kg8 41. Qc2 Kh8 42. Re7 1-0

Here is a link: Results of the Hoogovens' Grandmaster tournament