Loek van Wely (born 7 October 1972) is a Dutch

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

player and politician. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

in 1993, and was rated among the world's top ten in 2001 with a rating of 2714. In March 2019, he was elected to the

Dutch Senate The Senate ( or simply ' , literally "First Chamber of the States General", or sometimes ' ) is the upper house of the States General, the legislature of the Netherlands. Its 75 members are elected on lists by the members of the twelve States-P ...

for the party

Forum for Democracy Forum for Democracy ( nl, Forum voor Democratie, FvD) is a right-wing populist Eurosceptic political party in the Netherlands that was founded as a think tank by Thierry Baudet and Henk Otten in 2016. The party first participated in elections i ...

; however, on 8 December 2020 he switched his party allegiance to the van Pareren group, which is now affiliated with the

JA21 JA21 (, backronym for Juiste Antwoord 2021, or 'Right Answer 2021') is a political party in the Netherlands, currently active in the Senate as the Nanninga Group (). It was founded in December 2020 by Joost Eerdmans and Annabel Nanninga after le ...

party.

Chess career

He has won the

Dutch Chess Championship The Dutch Chess Championship was officially established in 1909, although unofficial champions stretch back to the 1870s. Early years : Official championships The official championship was established in 1909 as a biennial, twelve-player, round-ro ...

on eight occasions: six consecutive times from 2000 through 2005, in 2014 and in 2017. In 2002, in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, Netherlands, van Wely took on the computer program

Rebel A rebel is a participant in a rebellion. Rebel or rebels may also refer to: People * Rebel (given name) * Rebel (surname) * Patriot (American Revolution), during the American Revolution * American Southerners, as a form of self-identification; ...

in a four-game match, scoring 2/4 (+2–2=0). In 2005, he led the Dutch team to victory at the European Team Championship in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. Van Wely participated in the elite tournament held in

Wijk aan Zee Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Coru ...

(originally named Hoogovens, then Corus, now Tata Steel) 25 times, consecutively from 1992 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2017. His best result occurred in 2003, when he shared fourth place with

Alexei Shirov Alexei Shirov (, lv, Aleksejs Širovs; born 4 July 1972) is a Latvian and Spanish chess player. Shirov was ranked number two in the world in 1994. He won a match against Vladimir Kramnik in 1998 to qualify to play as challenger for the classic ...

Alexander Grischuk Alexander Igorevich Grischuk (born October 31, 1983) is a Russian chess grandmaster. Grischuk was the Russian champion in 2009. He is also a three-time world blitz chess champion (in 2006, 2012 and 2015). He has competed in five Candidates T ...

Vassily Ivanchuk Vasyl Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk ( uk, Василь Михайлович Іванчук; born March 18, 1969), also transliterated as Vassily Ivanchuk, is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading ...

and

Vladimir Kramnik Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (russian: Влади́мир Бори́сович Кра́мник; born 25 June 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Cha ...

scoring 7 out of 13 points. In May 2010, van Wely won the 14th

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Open. In 2011, he came in first at Berkeley International tournament in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. In 2016, he won the Hogeschool Zeeland tournament scoring 8 points from 9 games.

References

External links

* * * * * 1972 births Living people Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Dutch chess players People from Bernheze Members of the Senate (Netherlands) JA21 politicians Sportspeople from North Brabant Dutch sportsperson-politicians {{Netherlands-chess-bio-stub