John Zastapilo – Obituary

John Zastapilo – 11th February 2024

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In Memoriam John Zastapilo – David Culliford

I am sorry to report that my very good friend John Zastapilo has died, aged 72. I first met John during the 1990/91 chess season when he turned up at Southampton Chess Club one evening, seeking a return to playing club chess after a few years’ break from the game. Previously John had played for the Southampton Hospitals team in the Southampton and District League in the mid-1980s. John played for Southampton in the early 1990s and then switched clubs to Cricketers in the mid-1990s, along with our mutual friend Kev Byard. I followed them to Cricketers a year or two later.

John had a fine knowledge of the game, and in particular the principles behind the openings. He displayed a varied opening repertoire, especially with the black pieces, and was sufficiently proficient in many such that he could adapt with ease to his opponents’ efforts to divert him from his preferred opening configurations.

He played in club matches in the Southampton League and also especially enjoyed competing in weekend chess congresses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with Exeter, Frome and Weymouth being perhaps the most memorable. A substantial contingent of chess friends from various clubs in the Southampton area would travel to these events and we would typically enjoy the social side of these weekend events as much as the chess, if not more so.

From the mid-1990s onwards, John tended to favour tournaments comprising games with a shorter time-control, and these ‘rapidplay’ events would often have six or seven games compressed into a single day. John became less-enamoured with the longer ‘standardplay’ time-control format, which he always referred to as ‘slow-play’!

In 2006, John left England to work in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, moving to Belgium a few years later to work as a technical author for a company which specialised in the research, design and manufacture of cochlear implants. John very much enjoyed living on the continent, and seemed very settled in his well-appointed flat in the centre of Mechelen, a fine Flemish town.

In early 2022, just a few weeks after his 70th birthday, John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After a long period of intermittent treatment in Belgium, John finally returned home to be with family, just a few weeks before he eventually died on Sunday 11th February 2024. His funeral was held at Thanet Crematorium in Margate on Wednesday 13th March.

Having known John for well over 30 years, I found him to be a man with considerable wisdom and an engaging conversationalist. He had long-standing interests in foreign languages, European history, cycle racing and, of course, chess; with a well-refined knowledge of each. Adjectives I would use to describe John are: intelligent, patient, erudite, gracious. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends.

Written by David Culliford, 27th April 2024

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Games

John played many chess games in his career, but he fondly remembered facing the young David Howell at the 1999 Portsmouth Congress. Some excellent work, firstly by David Culliford and then Peter Eales has unearthed this game.

Peter Eales visited the 2024 Norway Chess Tournament¹ and spoke to David Howell, who provided the game. Special thanks to David Howell for this, I give the game below with no comments. Although David Howell was only graded 104 at this time, his rating would increase very quickly (almost 200 in July 2001) and this was an excellent game by John. I give the game from John’s side.

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Acknowledgements and sources:

• Photograph supplied and reproduced by kind permission of John’s sister, Linda.
• David Culliford for writing Obituary
• Peter Eales for obtaining game from David Howell, and David for providing the game.

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1. The Norway Chess 2024 is a 6-player double round-robin tournament, held from the 27th of May to the 7th of June in Stavanger, Norway ↩︎