GG VandenBerg

Daan Van den Berg grows tulips outside Lisse, forty hectares that spend three weeks each spring as one of the most photographed views in the Netherlands and the rest of the year as hard work. He is a winter player, and he means it literally. From November he is on the board most evenings, cheerful, fast and talking; from the third week of April he is simply gone, and stays gone until the bulbs are lifted. His opponents have learned not to expect anything from him in the spring, and he has never seen a reason to apologise for a schedule set by a flower. He leaves the cube alone almost entirely, on the grounds that a doubled game finishes sooner and the winter is long. Nine games in an evening suits him better than one good one.