The two-week tyranny of Ossip Bernstein in the IBM building in Amsterdam has come to an end. Leaning on his cane, the 'grand old' (1.89 m. tall and 79 years old) shuffled through the corridors and rooms of the mysterious electron house. No room was sacred to him, he walked in and out of boardrooms and passed the most expensive computer installations unmoved. As a chess player, the Jewish-Russian Frenchman did not have much to contribute, but IBM has come to know him as a formidable kleptomaniac. He stole a pen stand from a boardroom that was part of a writing set. A telephone book went missing from the reception after a visit from Herr Groszmeister and a chess clock is still being sought. On the other hand, he neatly returned a pocket knife that he stole from the press room because, according to him, it was too heavy in his trouser pocket.

This first IBM masters tournament, which was held on the initiative of the oldest Dutch chess club VAS, had two grandmasters, Bernstein and the Dutch ex-title holder Jan Hein Donner. We followed the game between these two greats from the tournament from a few meters away. Hein Donner is known to be not at his best against old, dawdling chess players. During the last Hoogoven chess tournament, Donner lost his game against the elderly Austrian grandmaster Gruenfeld, who used to use maximum thinking time by groaning and blowing over the board. Bernstein has a different method of delaying a game. When Donner was about to deliver the devastating blow, Bernstein stood up with the words ‘Entschuldigen Sie Please, ich musz mal anrufen.’ Bernstein’s resurrection ritual is impressive in itself. Like a rocket, he rises very slowly from the launching device. Halfway through, he sometimes sinks back and then starts again. Once he is up, he grabs over the glasses of water, cups of tea, squeezed lemons, a board to wave coolness and a saucer of biscuits to get his stick. Then he slowly sails out of the room, like an admiral's ship. Donner had to wait for three quarters of an hour before he was allowed to make the last four or five moves. Wringing his hands, he walked through the dressing room, while his opponent sat quietly smoking a cigar in the porter's lodge downstairs. He had plenty of time, because the sign 'Think' that can be found everywhere in the IBM building is not there for him. He uses only 15 to 20 minutes of playing time for a game, or actually only writing time, because as soon as the opponent has played, he writes down the move and then answers it immediately. He thinks in between, when he sits, breathing briefly, in all his pompous bulkiness, wearing a white shirt and braces, staring at the board. Finally, when Bernstein finally returned from the phone call, he asked the frightened Donner what they had put down for him in the meantime, tea or coffee. Donner said confusedly: ‘Ich glaube Tea, aber ich weisz es nicht sicher.’ Then the old man wanted to give check with his Queen, but it was right on the back row and he could not reach it — over all the cups and glasses. ‘Reichen Sie mir meine Dame an, please, ich will schach geben,’ he asked Donner, who brought the piece to the desired position and thus shot into his own goal, as it were. After two more moves Bernstein offered a draw, Donner just laughed and finally got the game. The tall Dutchman quickly made off to escape the torrent of words Bernstein used to end his games with.