#17 Wijk aan Zee Storytellers (1) - GM John van der Wiel
This is the first episode of the "Wijk aan Zee Storytellers". Eric talks to GM John van der Wiel (1959) from The Netherlands, who participated no less than 28 (!) times in the tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group in 1999, after which the tournament was called the Corus chess tournament. Corus Group became Tata Steel Europe in 2007. Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings. In 2021, the 83. edition was played. Since there are a lot of stories to tell about the tournament, Eric decided to invite a few former players and winners to the podcast to ask about their memories of this remote little village on the Dutch coast, that became "The Wimbledon of Chess".