Swell Publishers, NL, 2011, in the Dutch language, paperback, 93p., 210 grams, condition: very good+. 

Return to Groningen (1946-1996). The world chess tournament in 1946, organized by chess club Staunton and the ''repeat'' in 1996, where a number of grandmasters performed again, again highlighted. 32 games, some photos.

Siep H.Postma - author

Siep Postma was born in 1929 in Grouw and learned chess there in 1943 from an evacuee from Ymuiden. Siep saw him play chess with someone else and after following 3 games he already knew how the pieces moved. Only castling was something he had learned wrong. According to the evacuee, castling consisted of a long and a short version. The short was the normal form as we know it and in the long form the king was placed on h1 and the rook on e1. Later Siep went to chess club De Toer, but to his disappointment he was not allowed to participate in the highest group right away because of his young age.

Siep attended the ULO and later the HBS in Leeuwarden and his first of three Frisian youth chess titles. Because it was difficult to find work, he moved to Amsterdam to work there at the Tax Office and as a proofreader at the Arbeiderspers. There he further developed his chess. On New Year's Eve he was going through a book of Aljechin's best games. The neighbors found this so pitiful that they invited him to their home.

While teaching chess, his abilities as a 'schoolmaster' were discovered and Postma decided to attend the Avondkweekschool. After evening study, he became a primary school teacher in Landsmeer. In 1964, he became a teacher at the ULO (MAVO) in Leeuwarden until his retirement. In the same year, he also became secretary of the Frisian Chess Federation for five years and then chairman for thirteen years.

On the boat from Stavoren to Enkhuizen he met a nice nurse whom he soon married. Together they had two children, a son and a daughter. In Amsterdam he wrote his first book: Mikhail Tal, the chess wonder. It never came to a real publication, but a stencilled copy can be found in the extensive library of Lothar Schmitt. It would become the first book in a long series.

In 1960 the Postmas returned to Friesland. Siep got a job at the Perkschool (Mavo) in Leeuwarden and was also intensively involved in chess. Siep Postma is a talented chess player, he was three times champion of Friesland and later Veterans Champion. He played for the first ten of Philidor and as such sat next to men like Theun van den Tol, Mulder van Leens Dijkstra and of course Haye Kramer. With the latter Postma wrote a book about the chess phenomenon Bobby Fischer. Before that he had only published about Keres.

Later, more books would follow about Najdorf, Speelman and Stein. In Forgotten Chess Giants, published in 2000, he wrote about domestic and foreign chess greats whose names are still familiar but whose achievements had nevertheless sunk considerably. Postma recalls their memories, shows their best games and thus keeps the memory alive.

Postma did not only write books. He also published chess columns. For years, the educational magazine De Vacature was graced with a chess column written by him. Furthermore, Postma was also editor-in-chief of Jeugdschaak, the magazine that the KNSB published in the old days for the youngest chess players. In their circles, he was already known for the successful series of youth chess books that were published by Van Spijk publishers in Venlo. The chess adventures of Buikje! What chess player has never heard of it?