Adrianus Dingeman de Groot, commonly known as Adriaan de Groot, was a Dutch Chess master and more importantly known as a psychologist who conducted some of the most famous Chess experiments during his time in 1940s and 1950s. Adriaan is one of the most influential figure in the history of Chess.
Full name: Adrianus Dingeman De Groot
Born: October 26th, 1914
Place of birth: Santpoort, Nertherlands
Language: Dutch
Education: University of Amsterdam
Number of Chess Games in the Database: 66
Profiles
Biography
Adrianus Dingeman was born in a small village in Santpoort, Haarlem, where he grew up and lived with his family. His family had a high value for chess and education in general. After completing low levels of education, de Groot joined the University of Amsterdam, where he pursued Physics and Mathematics. Adrianus de Groot, later on, followed Psychology through post-candidate addition to established disciplines as Psychology was not a discipline available on its own in those days in the Netherlands.
The Beginning as a Chess Player
Adrianus Dingeman de Groot was born into a highly esteemed family towards chess. It gave de Groot a starting point as a chess player. De Groot’s interest developed further while he was at the University in Amsterdam. While at the university, he met Brouwer, one of his lecturers in mathematics. Brouwer was key to the development of de Groot’s chess career.
Chess Career
Adrianus de Groot became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973. De Groot was part of the Netherlands’ national chess team. He took part in the 1937 and 1939 tournaments called the Chess Olympiads. His first tournament was when he represented the Netherlands in Germany in unofficial tournament of Olympiads the known as the Nations’ Tournament, in 1936 at the age of 22. De Groot then played in the Stockholm Olympiads in 1937 and finished in position six at 23 years.
In 1939 he participated in the Buenos Aires Olympiad; Holland finished 8th at 25 years. In 1937, de Groot took part in a tournament in Amsterdam where he won. In 1938, he finished fourth in a robust version of the at Dutch Championship, in a robust contest he became 4th position. Max Euwe among other elite players took part in the tournament. In 1947, de Groot took prt in his final chess tournament which was the Hoogoven, he retired from chess at 33 years.
Academic Career
De Groot paused his career in chess during WW II. He was a secondary teacher for some time. He could later be appointed as a psychologist in institute dealing with vocational training. Adrianus de Groot is known for his famous research in psychology and the chess experiments he conducted. De Groot, in the year 1946, came up with the famous Het Denken van den Shaker thesis, popularly known as the thought and choice in the world of the chess game.
Chess Experiments
Adrianus de Groot had a high interest in chess. He combined both psychology and chess to conduct his chess experiments. In 1938, de Groot wrote a paper that focused the relationship between chess and talent. In his thesis, he studied the minds of chess players and variables between grandmasters and candidate masters.
Achievements
Altjhough Adrianus de Groot did not earn any Chess titles from FIDE, he did reach master level in the game. He had a short chess career, as summarized below. More important was his impact on the game of Chess as a whole through his psychology work and experiments he ran for the game of Chess.
Tournaments
- Hoogovens in 1946
- Buenos Aires Olympiad qual-3 1939
- Stockholm Olympiad 1937
- Buenos Aires Olympiad Final-A 1939
- Non-FIDE Munich Olympiad 1937
Did you like learning about Adrianus Dingeman de Groot? If you did, you might be interested in other people that have had a big impact on Chess, such as Claude Shannon.
References
1. “Tel:1930 photograph (found online at http://albumacademicum.uva.nl/), Adriaan de Groot from Wikipedia
2. William Chase, Herbert Simon (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 1, pdf
3. Fernand Gobet (2006). Adriaan de Groot: Marriage of two Passions. ICGA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 4, pdf
4. Claude Shannon (1949). Programming a Computer for Playing Chess
5. Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_de_Groot#cite_ref-1
6. Le Langage / Intelligence et artifices, by Paul Brafford 2002 (French) translated by Babelfish
7. Jack Good (1988). Some Comments Concerning an Article by De Groot. ICCA Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2/3”
8. Chess programming: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Adriaan_de_Groot#:~:text=1930s%20photograph%20(found,11%2C%20No.%202/3
9. Chess Games;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597697
10. Chess Gmes:https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=98288