View source for Jan Timman

{{short description|Dutch chess grandmaster (born 1951)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2025}}
{{Infobox chess player
|name = Jan Timman
|image = Jan Timman 1984 Saloniki.jpg
|caption = Timman in 1984
|birthname = Jan Hendrik Timman
|country = Netherlands
|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1951|12|14|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Amsterdam]], Netherlands
|death_date = 
|death_place = 
|title = [[Grandmaster (chess)|Grandmaster]] (1974)
|peakrating = 2680 (January 1990)
|peakranking = No. 2 (January 1982)
|FideID = 1000012
}}
'''Jan Timman''' (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch [[chess grandmaster]] who was one of the world's leading [[chess]] 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".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/may/6/20050506-093920-1428r/|title=Timman stages comeback|date=6 May 2005|work=Washington Times|access-date=20 June 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2544|title=Chess News - The Amsterdam Chess Tournament revisited|date=30 July 2005|publisher=ChessBase|access-date=20 June 2010}}</ref> He has won the [[Dutch Chess Championship]] nine times and has been a [[Candidates Match|Candidate]] for the [[World Chess Championship]] several times. He lost the title match of the [[1993 FIDE World Championship]] against [[Anatoly Karpov]].

== Early career ==
He is the son of mathematics professor Rein Timman and his wife Anneke, who as a schoolgirl was a mathematics student of former world champion [[Max Euwe]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=byJBCwAAQBAJ&q=Anneke+timman&pg=PA79 |title=The World Champions I Knew |first=Genna |last=Sosonko |publisher=New In Chess |isbn=9789056914844 |page=79 |date=4 June 2014 |access-date=16 April 2018 |via=Google Books}}</ref> His older brother, Ton (1946–2014), held the chess title of FIDE Master. Jan Timman was already an outstanding prospect in his early teens, and at Jerusalem 1967 played in the [[World Junior Chess Championship|World Junior Championship]], aged fifteen, finishing third.

Timman 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 Chess Championship|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 International Chess Congress|Hastings]] 1973/74, where he shared victory with [[Mikhail Tal|Tal]], [[Gennady Kuzmin|Kuzmin]], and [[László Szabó (chess player)|Szabó]].<ref name="companion">{{cite book|title=[[Oxford Companion To Chess]]|author=[[David Vincent Hooper|Hooper, David]] & [[Kenneth Whyld|Whyld, Kenneth]]|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1996|isbn=0-19-280049-3|oclc=34618196}}</ref> A string of victories quickly followed at [[Sombor]] 1974 (with [[Boris Gulko]]), [[Netanya]] 1975, [[Reykjavík]] 1976 (with [[Fridrik Olafsson]]), [[Amsterdam]] [[IBM]] 1978, [[Nikšić]] 1978,<ref name="The Penguin Encyclopedia of Chess">{{Cite book | editor-last=Golombek | editor-first=Harry | editor-link=Harry Golombek | year=1981 | title=The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Chess | publisher=Penguin Books | isbn=978-0-14-046452-8}}</ref> and [[Bled]]/[[Portorož]] 1979.

==Tournament successes==
By 1982 Timman was ranked second in the world, behind only [[Anatoly Karpov]]. In the 1980s he won a number of very strong tournaments, including Amsterdam IBM in 1981, [[Tata Steel Chess Tournament|Wijk aan Zee]] in 1981 and 1985, [[Linares chess tournament|Linares]] in 1988, the 1989 [[Max Euwe|Euwe]] Memorial, and the 1989 World Cup tournament in [[Rotterdam]]. Other major successes included [[Las Palmas]] 1981, [[Mar del Plata chess tournaments|Mar del Plata]] 1982, [[Bugojno]] 1984, and [[Sarajevo]] 1984. One of his notable later successes was the 2nd Immopar [[Fast chess|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]] 1½–½, Karpov 2–0, [[Viswanathan Anand]] 1½–½, and finally the World Champion [[Garry Kasparov]] 1½–½ 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 [[Forssa]]/[[Helsinki]] 1972 and Reykjavík 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 Match]]es for the first time. However, he lost in the first round to [[Artur Yusupov (chess player)|Artur Yusupov]] in 1986. In the next cycle, after winning the 1987 [[Tilburg]] Interzonal he defeated [[Valery Salov]], [[Lajos Portisch]], and [[Jon Speelman|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 [[World Chess Championship 1993|match]] by 12½ points to 8½.<ref>[http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9193$cix.htm Mark Weeks' men's world championship pages]</ref>

==Olympiad career==
[[File:Timman Jan.jpg|left|thumb|195px|Timman at The Hague 2007]]
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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.olimpbase.org/players/ztp57vjb.html|title=Men's Chess Olympiads: Jan Timman|last=Bartelski|first=Wojciech|publisher=OlimpBase|access-date=21 October 2010|archive-date=24 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924143750/http://www.olimpbase.org/players/ztp57vjb.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Later career==
Timman continues to play actively. In 2004 he placed equal first in a tournament in Reykjavík and was equal second at Amsterdam. He played in the gold medal-winning Dutch team at the [[European Team Chess Championship]]s in [[Gothenburg]] in 2005, alongside [[Loek van Wely]], [[Ivan Sokolov (chess player)|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.

==Writings==
Timman is one of the chief editors of the magazine ''[[New In Chess]]''. His book ''The Art of Chess Analysis'' ({{ISBN|1-85744-179-6}}) is widely considered one of the modern classics of chess literature. His ''Timman's Titans'' won the 2017 ECF Book of the Year.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-book-of-the-year-2017/|title = ECF Book of the Year 2017|date = 29 September 2017|access-date = 5 June 2020|archive-date = 5 June 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200605214304/https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-book-of-the-year-2017/|url-status = dead}}</ref> His other books include ''Timman's Selected Games'' (1995), ''Studies and Games'' (1996), ''Fischer, World Champion!'' (2002), an account of the [[World Chess Championship 1972|1972 World Championship]], ''Power Chess with Pieces: The Ultimate Guide to the Bishops Pair & Strong Knights'' (2004), ''Botvinnik's Secret Games'' (2006), ''On the Attack: The Art of Attacking Chess According to the Modern Masters'' (2006), ''Curaçao 1962: The Battle of Minds That Shook the Chess World'' (2007), which covers the [[World Chess Championship 1963|1962 Candidates Tournament]] and ''The Art of the Endgame (My journeys in the Magical World Endgame Studies)'' (2011).
{{clear}}

==Style==
Timman likes to challenge opponents directly in the areas of their strengths. [[Yasser Seirawan]] describes a game where Timman had an over-the-board inspiration to opt for a complicated game—the kind that Timman knew Seirawan really enjoyed—in spite of having prepared an equalizing variation beforehand. Timman's fearlessness has caused him to lose a lot of games, but also makes him a feared competitor because nobody likes to lose from their favourite positions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Seirawan |first=Yasser |title=Winning Chess Brilliancies |year=2003 |publisher=Microsoft Press |isbn=978-1857443479}}</ref> [[Raymond Keene]] described Timman's playing style as that of "a fighter, in the mould of [[Emanuel Lasker]]".<ref name="The Penguin Encyclopedia of Chess"/>

He has always adopted a wide and varied [[Chess opening|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.<ref>{{cite book|author=Giddens, Steve|title=How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire|publisher=[[Gambit Publications]]|pages=28|year=2003|isbn=1-901983-89-7 |author-link=Steve Giddins}}</ref>

===Example game===
{{AN chess|pos=secleft}}
{{Chess diagram small
| tright
| Timman vs. Kasparov, Hilversum 1985
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  
|  |  |qd|  |  |pd|  |  
|  |  |pd|  |  |kd|pd|pd
|  |  |  |pl|pd|  |  |  
|bd|pl|  |  |  |  |  |  
|rd|bl|ql|  |  |  |  |pl
|  |  |  |  |  |  |pl|  
|  |  |  |  |rl|  |kl|  
| Position after 36...dxe5
}} 
This game, played between Timman and [[Garry Kasparov]] in [[Hilversum]] on 17 December 1985, is a good example of Timman's style: 
:Timman vs. [[Garry Kasparov]], [[Hilversum]] 1985; [[Ruy Lopez]], [[Ruy Lopez#Zaitsev Variation|Zaitsev Variation]] <br />1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 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 (chess)|combination]]) 37.d6 Qxd6 38.Qf3+ Ke7 39.Qxf7+ Kd8 40.Rd1 Ra1 41.Qf6+ (Kasparov cannot hang on to his queen) {{chessAN|1–0}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070170 |title=Timman vs. Kasparov, 1985 |website=[[Chessgames.com]] }}</ref>

==Personal life==
Timman married twice, with a son and a daughter from the first marriage.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* {{chessgames player|id=14220}}

{{World Chess Championships}}
{{Dutch GMs}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Timman, Jan}}
[[Category:1951 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Chess Grandmasters]]
[[Category:Dutch republicans]]
[[Category:Chess Olympiad competitors]]
[[Category:Dutch chess players]]
[[Category:Dutch chess writers]]
[[Category:Dutch non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Chess players from Amsterdam]]