Tom Fürstenberg

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Tom Fürstenberg

Tom Fürstenberg,
a Dutch computer chess expert, retired chess and computer chess salesman, formerly representing Fidelity Electronics. With his close friend David Bronstein, Tom Fürstenberg is co-author of The Sorcerer's Apprentice . Tom Fürstenberg participated at Aegon Tournaments on both sides, operating Fidelity computers , as well as playing the Aegon 1997 on the human side .

Photos

Tom Fürstenberg between Anatoly Karpov and Cock de Gorter, 1985

Tom Fürstenberg and David Bronstein, Aegon 1991

Quotes

by Tom Fürstenberg :

At the end of the 70's I got very interested in computer chess and chess computers and in 1977 I bought the first chess computer that became available commercially. I traveled a lot from one such tournament to another and made many new friends and in 1986 I actually started a business selling chess computers. We were selling a lot of computers but not really making any profit. When I started investigating closely, I found out that my only employee had been stealing computers from me and was selling them for his own benefit. I fired him on the spot in 1992 and a legal battle started which I finally won end of 1998. We settled for half what he was condemned to pay. It was just enough to cover my legal fees but for it had become a matter of principle.

As I had no longer the possibility to give adequate after-sales-service without my technical man and as the market became saturated anyway, I discontinued selling chess computers. I now only sell chess playing programs and chess database programs for the PC by mail order. The main advantage is that floppies and CD-ROMs don’t require any after-sales service and if there is something wrong a simple exchange will cure that. 

Publications

• Tom Fürstenberg (1980). The First World Microcomputer Championship. Chess, December 1980 » WMCCC 1980
• Tom Fürstenberg (1981). 2e Micro WK Travemünde/Hamburg. Computerschaak, 11-1981 (Dutch) » WMCCC 1981
• Tom Fürstenberg (1984). Micro Chess Computers. ICCA Journal, Vol. 7, No. 3
• Tom Fürstenberg (1985). Micro Chess Computers (Part 2). ICCA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1
• Frederic Friedel (1990). Elektronischer Sekundant ein Fidelity-Computer bei der Schach-WM in New-York. Computerschach und Spiele 6/90, (German)
• David Bronstein, Tom Fürstenberg (1995). The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Cadogan Books, London. ISBN 1-85744-151-6

In 1954 I met Grandmaster Bronstein for the first time in person when he came to Amsterdam with the Soviet team to play in the Olympiad. Little could I foresee then that he would become one of my best friends and that I would write a book about him. I found the title The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, David being the Sorcerer (on the chessboard) and the reader his Apprentice. As I had never written a book before, let alone a chess book, I structured in a way that I felt would show every aspect of David Bronstein's chess. When I asked his wife Tatiana Boleslavskaya (daughter of the famous Grandmaster Isaac Boleslavsky from Minsk, Belarus) to contribute, she wrote a chapter in the form of a moving testimonial about her husband.

External Links

• Tom Furstenberg | Facebook

References

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