Jan Timman
Encyclopedia
Jan Timman is a Dutch
chess
Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West". He has won the Dutch Chess Championship
nine times and has been a Candidate for the World Championship
several times.
, aged fifteen, finishing third.
He received the International Master title in 1971, and in 1974 attained Grandmaster status, making him the Netherlands' third after Max Euwe
and Jan Hein Donner
. In the same year he won the Dutch Championship
for the first time, having finished second in 1972. He was to win it again on many more occasions through 1996. His first notable international success was at Hastings
1973/74, where he shared victory with Tal
, Kuzmin
, and Szabó
. A string of victories quickly followed at Sombor
1974 (with Boris Gulko), Netanya
1975, Reykjavik
1976 (with Fridrik Olafsson), Amsterdam
IBM
1978, Nikšić
1978, and Bled
/Portorož
1979.
. In the 1980s he won a number of very strong tournaments, including Amsterdam IBM in 1981, Wijk aan Zee
1981, and 1985, Linares
1988, the 1989 Euwe
Memorial, and the 1989 World Cup tournament in Rotterdam
. Other major successes included Las Palmas 1981, Mar del Plata 1982, Bugojno
1984, and Sarajevo
1984. One of his notable later successes was the 2nd Timman Rapid Tournament in 1991, a weekend event which attracted a huge amount of prize money. In this knock-out format tournament he defeated Gata Kamsky
1.5–0.5, Karpov 2–0, Viswanathan Anand
1.5–0.5, and finally the World Champion Garry Kasparov
1.5–0.5 to win the first prize of approximately 75,000 USD. His performance was equivalent to an Elo rating of 2950.
/Helsinki
1972 and Reykjavik 1975. He failed to qualify for the next stage on both occasions. However his win at Amsterdam 1978 took him to his first interzonal
tournament at Rio de Janeiro
, where he failed to progress further. He finished in the middle of the field at the 1982 Las Palmas Interzonal, but won the Taxco
1985 Interzonal convincingly to qualify for the Candidates Matches for the first time. However, he lost in the first round to Artur Yusupov
in 1986. In the next cycle, after winning the 1987 Tilburg
Interzonal he defeated Valery Salov
, Lajos Portisch
, and Jonathan Speelman
, but lost in the final to Anatoly Karpov in 1990. He reached the final round once again in 1993, having defeated Robert Hübner
, Viktor Korchnoi
, and Yusupov, but lost this time to Nigel Short
. However, after Short and Garry Kasparov
played their World Championship match outside of the auspices of the sport's governing body FIDE, Timman was invited to compete against Karpov for the FIDE version of the world title. He lost the match
by 12½ points to 8½.
s in Gothenburg
in 2005, alongside Loek van Wely
, Ivan Sokolov
, Sergei Tiviakov
, and Erik van den Doel. In 2006 he won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmö
Sweden and was second in the Howard Staunton
Memorial in London.
described Timman's playing style as that of "a fighter, in the mould of Emanuel Lasker
".
He has always adopted a wide and varied opening
repertoire, playing an array of different systems as both White and Black. When he first reached the world class level in the 1970s, this was relatively unusual, with most elite grandmasters deploying a more narrowly focused range of openings, but it is now the norm.
in Hilversum
on 17 December 1985, is a good example of Timman's style. Timman played as White through the Spanish Game:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Nbd2 Bf8 14.a3 h6 15.Bc2 Nb8 16.b4 Nbd7 17.Bb2 g6 18.c4 exd4 19.cxb5 axb5 20.Nxd4 c6 21.a4 bxa4 22.Bxa4 Qb6 23.Nc2 Qc7 24.Bb3 Ba6 25.Rc1 Bg7 26.Ne3 Bb5 27.Nd5 Nxd5 28.Bxg7 Kxg7 29.exd5 Ne5 30.Ne4 Nd3 31.Qd2 Ra3 32.Nf6 Rxe1+ 33.Rxe1 Kxf6 34.Qc3+ Ne5 35.f4 Ba4 36.fxe5 dxe5 (see diagram; at this point, Timman finds a game-ending combination) 37.d6 Qxd6 38.Qf3+ Ke7 39.Qxf7+ Kd8 40.Rd1 Ra1 41.Qf6+ (and Kasparov cannot hang on to his queen) 1–0
. His book The Art of Chess Analysis (ISBN 1-85744-179-6) is widely considered one of the modern classics of chess literature. His other books include Timman's Selected Games (1995), Fischer, World Champion! (2002), an account of the 1972 World Championship, and Curaçao 1962: The Battle of Minds That Shook the Chess World (2007), which covers the 1962 Candidates Tournament
.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West". He has won the Dutch Chess Championship
Dutch Chess Championship
The Dutch Chess Championship was officially established in 1909, although unofficial champions stretch back to the 1870s.-Early years:-Official championships:...
nine times and has been a Candidate for the World Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
several times.
Early career
Timman was an outstanding prospect in his early teens, and at Jerusalem 1967 played in the World Junior ChampionshipWorld Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament organized by the World Chess Federation ....
, aged fifteen, finishing third.
He received the International Master title in 1971, and in 1974 attained Grandmaster status, making him the Netherlands' third after Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
and Jan Hein Donner
Jan Hein Donner
Johannes Hendrikus Donner was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. Donner was born in The Hague and won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957, and 1958. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, awarded him the GM title in 1959. He played 11 times for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads...
. In the same year he won the Dutch Championship
Dutch Chess Championship
The Dutch Chess Championship was officially established in 1909, although unofficial champions stretch back to the 1870s.-Early years:-Official championships:...
for the first time, having finished second in 1972. He was to win it again on many more occasions through 1996. His first notable international success was at Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1973/74, where he shared victory with Tal
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
, Kuzmin
Gennady Kuzmin
Gennady Pavlovich Kuzmin is a Soviet - Ukrainian chess master and trainer. He should not be confused with Russian Grandmaster, Alexey Kuzmin.As a player, he reached his peak strength in the early to mid 1970s and in 1973, was awarded the International Grandmaster title by FIDE, the governing...
, and Szabó
László Szabó (chess player)
László Szabó was a prominent Hungarian Grandmaster of chess.Born in Budapest, he burst onto the international chess scene in 1935, at the unusually young age of 18...
. A string of victories quickly followed at Sombor
Sombor
Sombor is a city and municipality located in northwest part of Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina. The city has a total population of 48,749 , while the Sombor municipality has 87,815 inhabitants...
1974 (with Boris Gulko), Netanya
Netanya
Netanya is a city in the Northern Centre District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate Institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.Its of beaches have made the...
1975, Reykjavik
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
1976 (with Fridrik Olafsson), Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
1978, Nikšić
Nikšić
Nikšić is a city in Montenegro . In 2003 the city had a total population about 75,000.Nikšić is located in Nikšić plain, at the foot of Mount Trebjesa. It is the center of the municipality , which is the largest in Montenegro by area...
1978, and Bled
Bled
Bled is a municipality in northwestern Slovenia in the region of Upper Carniola. The area, within the Julian Alps, is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
/Portorož
Portorož
- External links :**...
1979.
Tournament successes
By 1982 Timman was ranked second in the world, behind only Anatoly KarpovAnatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
. In the 1980s he won a number of very strong tournaments, including Amsterdam IBM in 1981, Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee is a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel chess tournament formerly Corus chess tournament and before that called Hoogovens tournament takes place there every year.Due...
1981, and 1985, Linares
Linares chess tournament
The Linares International Chess Tournament , is an annual chess tournament, usually played around the end of February, takes its name from the city of Linares in the Jaén province of Andalusia, Spain, in which it is held...
1988, the 1989 Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
Memorial, and the 1989 World Cup tournament in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
. Other major successes included Las Palmas 1981, Mar del Plata 1982, Bugojno
Bugojno
Bugojno is a town and municipality of the same name in central Bosnia and Herzegovina on the river Vrbas. It is located in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity. The town is to the northwest from Sarajevo, with an estimated population of 50,000 .To the west...
1984, and Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
1984. One of his notable later successes was the 2nd Timman Rapid Tournament in 1991, a weekend event which attracted a huge amount of prize money. In this knock-out format tournament he defeated Gata Kamsky
Gata Kamsky
Gata Kamsky is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and the current World Rapid Chess Champion. He is also the current United States Chess Champion. As of September 2011, he is rated No. 1 in the United States and No...
1.5–0.5, Karpov 2–0, Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
1.5–0.5, and finally the World Champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
1.5–0.5 to win the first prize of approximately 75,000 USD. His performance was equivalent to an Elo rating of 2950.
World Championship Candidate
Timman's world championship career began at the zonal tournaments at ForssaForssa
Forssa is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located almost in the centre of a triangle defined by the three largest major cities in Finland , in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Tavastia Proper region. The town has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...
/Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
1972 and Reykjavik 1975. He failed to qualify for the next stage on both occasions. However his win at Amsterdam 1978 took him to his first interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournament at Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, where he failed to progress further. He finished in the middle of the field at the 1982 Las Palmas Interzonal, but won the Taxco
Taxco
Taxco de Alarcón is a small city and municipality located in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The name Taxco is most likely derived from the Nahuatl word tlacheco, which means “place of the ballgame.” However, one interpretation has the name coming from the word tatzco which means “where the father...
1985 Interzonal convincingly to qualify for the Candidates Matches for the first time. However, he lost in the first round to Artur Yusupov
Artur Yusupov
Artur Mayakovich Yusupov is a German International Grandmaster of chess, and a chess writer.-Chess career:...
in 1986. In the next cycle, after winning the 1987 Tilburg
Tilburg
Tilburg is a landlocked municipality and a city in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of Noord-Brabant.Tilburg municipality also includes the villages of Berkel-Enschot and Udenhout....
Interzonal he defeated Valery Salov
Valery Salov
Valery Salov is a Russian chess grandmaster.Salov was awarded the International Master title in 1984 and the Grandmaster title in 1986. He was the World under-17 Champion in 1980 and European Junior Champion in 1983-84...
, Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik"...
, and Jonathan Speelman
Jon Speelman
Jonathan Simon "Jon" Speelman is an English Grandmaster chess player, mathematician and chess writer.-Early life and education:He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied mathematics, earning a doctorate.-Career:...
, but lost in the final to Anatoly Karpov in 1990. He reached the final round once again in 1993, having defeated Robert Hübner
Robert Hübner
Robert Hübner is a respected German chess Grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist . At eighteen, he was joint winner of the West German Chess Championship...
, Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
, and Yusupov, but lost this time to Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
. However, after Short and Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
played their World Championship match outside of the auspices of the sport's governing body FIDE, Timman was invited to compete against Karpov for the FIDE version of the world title. He lost the match
World Chess Championship 1993
The World Chess Championship 1993 was held from 1990 to 1993. It was one of the most controversial in history, with incumbent World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, and official challenger Nigel Short, splitting from FIDE, the official world governing body of chess, and playing their title match...
by 12½ points to 8½.
Olympiad career
Timman represented the Netherlands in 13 Chess Olympiads from 1972 to 2004, playing on the top board on 11 occasions. In 1976 he won the gold medal for the best individual performance on that board.Later career
Timman continues to play actively. In 2004 he placed equal first in a tournament in Reykjavik and was equal second at Amsterdam. He played in the gold medal-winning Dutch team at the European Team ChampionshipEuropean Team Championship
The European Team Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9...
s in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
in 2005, alongside Loek van Wely
Loek van Wely
Loek van Wely is a chess Grandmaster from the Netherlands. He won the Dutch Chess Championship six times straight from 2000 through 2005. He was rated among the world's top ten in 2001. In 2002, in Maastricht, Netherlands, van Wely took on the computer program Rebel in a four-game match. The...
, Ivan Sokolov
Ivan Sokolov
Ivan Sokolov is a chess grandmaster born in Jajce, SFR Yugoslavia, who currently resides in the Netherlands. Sokolov won the 1988 Yugoslav Championship....
, Sergei Tiviakov
Sergei Tiviakov
Sergei Tiviakov is a naturalised Dutch chess Grandmaster.Tiviakov won the Dutch Chess Championship in 2006 and 2007. In 2008, in Plovdiv, he won the European Individual Chess Championship with 8.5/11....
, and Erik van den Doel. In 2006 he won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
Sweden and was second in the Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...
Memorial in London.
Style
Raymond KeeneRaymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...
described Timman's playing style as that of "a fighter, in the mould of Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
".
He has always adopted a wide and varied opening
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
repertoire, playing an array of different systems as both White and Black. When he first reached the world class level in the 1970s, this was relatively unusual, with most elite grandmasters deploying a more narrowly focused range of openings, but it is now the norm.
Sample game
This game, played between Timman and Garry KasparovGarry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
in Hilversum
Hilversum
is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...
on 17 December 1985, is a good example of Timman's style. Timman played as White through the Spanish Game:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Nbd2 Bf8 14.a3 h6 15.Bc2 Nb8 16.b4 Nbd7 17.Bb2 g6 18.c4 exd4 19.cxb5 axb5 20.Nxd4 c6 21.a4 bxa4 22.Bxa4 Qb6 23.Nc2 Qc7 24.Bb3 Ba6 25.Rc1 Bg7 26.Ne3 Bb5 27.Nd5 Nxd5 28.Bxg7 Kxg7 29.exd5 Ne5 30.Ne4 Nd3 31.Qd2 Ra3 32.Nf6 Rxe1+ 33.Rxe1 Kxf6 34.Qc3+ Ne5 35.f4 Ba4 36.fxe5 dxe5 (see diagram; at this point, Timman finds a game-ending combination) 37.d6 Qxd6 38.Qf3+ Ke7 39.Qxf7+ Kd8 40.Rd1 Ra1 41.Qf6+ (and Kasparov cannot hang on to his queen) 1–0
Writings
Timman is one of the chief editors of the magazine New In ChessNew In Chess
New In Chess is a chess magazine that appears eight times a year with chief editors International Grandmaster Jan Timman and Dirk Jan Ten Geuzendam. It contains notes by top players and chess prodigies on their own games...
. His book The Art of Chess Analysis (ISBN 1-85744-179-6) is widely considered one of the modern classics of chess literature. His other books include Timman's Selected Games (1995), Fischer, World Champion! (2002), an account of the 1972 World Championship, and Curaçao 1962: The Battle of Minds That Shook the Chess World (2007), which covers the 1962 Candidates Tournament
World Chess Championship 1963
At the World Chess Championship 1963 Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion...
.