GM Jan Timman RIP

[Hans Jung]

Timman's famous book - The Art of Chess Analysis. I benefited from it twice - the first time in my formative years as a young chess master and then 16 years later as an unexpected gift after a terrible tragedy.

Todd Southam won the Art of Chess Analysis as a best game prize (I think?) at the World Cadet Championship in France in 1984. It was one of his favorite books.

Years later he met my student, young Isaac Mathews, in London, Ontario. They became inseparable. For two all too short years Todd was the older brother that Isaac never had. Todd had a renaissance in playing and analysing at the time and, of course the whole London chess community benefited hugely.

In December, 1996 Todd was taken from us suddenly. His death was a shock to everyone. That was thirty years ago. Isaac was grief stricken and gave up chess at that point, on the verge of master strength. He was 14. I was given his chess books, the one I treasure most is, you guessed it: "The Art of Chess Analysis."

Even thirty years later, Todd you are not forgotten.

[Hans Jung]

Excellent study... very tricky. Thanks for posting.

You are welcome Kerry. Glad you are enjoying. I hope to add more.

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2976321 Boyer - Jobava, 2025 European Teams Championship, Batumi

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2973365 Theodorou - Predke, 2025 European Teams Batumi

[Hans Jung]

In Timman's last column titled "Give pieces a chance" in New in Chess #8, 2025 he says : "Attacks may flourish brilliantly or flounder tragically, but dynamic and tactically rich chess is always fascinating to watch"

The first two games he chooses are Theodorou - Predke, European Teams 2025 and Boyer - Jobava also European Teams 2025. They are chaotic and tactically brilliant. Timman's analysis is crisp and to the point and enhances the games.

[Kerry Liles]

The solution to the above problem in post 32 is 1.Kh1! and then two main move choices for Black. If 1...Kf3 2.e5 fxe5 3.g5, e4 4.Kg1, e3 5.Kf1 and stops the E-pawn.

If 1....Kf1 2.e5 fxe5 3.g5, e4 4.g6, e3 5.g7 e2 6.g8=Q, e1=Q 7.Qg2 mate.

Excellent study... very tricky. Thanks for posting.

[Hans Jung]

The solution to the above problem in post 32 is 1.Kh1! and then two main move choices for Black. If 1...Kf3 2.e5 fxe5 3.g5, e4 4.Kg1, e3 5.Kf1 and stops the E-pawn.

If 1....Kf1 2.e5 fxe5 3.g5, e4 4.g6, e3 5.g7 e2 6.g8=Q, e1=Q 7.Qg2 mate.

[Hans Jung]

I have wanted to write about Timman's influence on generations of players. First of all the awareness he brought to me and many other players of the joy of both composing and solving complex endgame studies. I recently saw a picture that I remember in the past. It was Jan Timman sitting across from Yochanan Afek in a pub somewhere in Holland. In front of them was a position from an endgame. Timman's face was very expressive and he seemed to be making a point probably in the midst of analysis. Watching in rapt attention were Manuel Bosboom and Sosonko amongst many grandmasters and IM's.
I will probably introduce later some of Timman's most famous endgame studies but I want to start with a simple position (how could anything be simpler in chess?) Its a five piece composition, a total of three pawns, two white pawns and one black pawn and two kings.

White to move and win. Simple, right? Its a composition by Harold van der Heijden who founded the famous endgame database. You can solve this by brute calculation or by logic and creative vision.

[Hans Jung]

https://en.chessbase.com/post/speelman-agony-237 Imagine a bottle of wine with a label that has a diagram showing your best surprise move.

[Frank Dixon]

The late GM Jan Timman (1951-2026) encountered an exceptional roadblock quite early, on his way to a possible world championship. This was GM Anatoly Karpov, born the same year, 1951, a few months before Timman.

I did know that GM Karpov had a commanding lifetime score against GM Timman in their head-to-head games, but until recently I was unaware of the specific details of the rivalry. In classical games, between 1967 and 2020, a span of 53 years, GM Karpov won 30, drew 64, and lost only 9 games against GM Timman. These figures are from chessgames.com. Now, that is dominance. Perhaps among rivalries between world-class players, in recent times, only the dominance of GM Viktor Korchnoi over GM Mikhail Tal is comparable.

The two future stars first met at the European Junior Championship, 1967-68, in the Netherlands. They first played a short draw in the preliminaries, then Karpov won in the finals on his way to a championship triumph. Karpov, with the assistance of the Soviet chess organization, from that juncture was a step or two ahead of Timman, on their respective paths towards chess achievement. When Karpov acquired the training assistance of GM Semion Furman at the 1968 Soviet Team Championship, that set the stage for a dramatic escalation of the young master's chess strength. Although Timman had qualified for a World Junior Championship tournament appearance before Karpov did (Jerusalem 1967; an event the USSR boycotted because of the 1967 Six Days' War), when Karpov did qualify in 1969 (at that stage the championship was held every two years), he utterly dominated at Stockholm 1969 to claim the championship, and the resultant IM title. Karpov was to qualify as a GM with an excellent performance at Caracas 1970, to become the youngest GM in the world, at age 19. Timman had to wait a few more years before he could reach GM level.

Particularly after World Champion GM Boris Spassky lost the title match to GM Bobby Fischer at Reykjavik 1972, the Soviet chess organization decided that the older generation, which had been defeated by Fischer (GMs Spassky, Petrosian, Taimanov, Tal, Korchnoi, Polugaevsky, Smyslov, Bronstein, and so forth), could no longer successfully compete with the new champion. Instead, the Soviet chess leadership deepened their move towards a 'Karpov Hero Project', as GM Andrew Soltis terms it in his superb 2000 book 'Soviet Chess 1917-1991. The project was to develop Karpov as a new challenger to Fischer. The effort succeeded spectacularly, with GM Karpov becoming World Champion in 1975, when Champion Fischer decided to not defend his title.

The excellent website olimpbase.org, the best site for team chess historical data, which is now back up and available, after an extended period down, featured a tribute article on GM Timman in recent days. In it, they included what they referred to as 'Timman's Immortal Game', Jan's powerful win as Black in an Open Sicilian, from Mar del Plata 1982, when Anatoly was world champion. Jan also won the strong tournament in convincing style.

Although GM Karpov won the world title and held it for ten years, I would venture to assert that GM Timman had far more fun in his life than did GM Karpov!!

[Nigel Hanrahan]

GM Timman was also an endgame composer. He wrote "The Art of the Endgame" [2011 New In Chess] and worked on a revised edition in which he wrote another short Preface in July 2023.

In December 2010, I decided to write The Art of the Endgame. I
wanted to show systematically, guiding the reader along themes and
genres, why endgame studies are so beautiful and so interesting.
Especially the systematics were important. It had struck me that
most books on endgame studies were quite random collections. My
intention was to reveal the secrets from the world of endgame
studies in 14 chapters. I also had a second intention: in 1991, my
book Schaakwerk II had appeared in Dutch (later translated as
‘Studies and Games’). In the second part of this book, I had
included a number of endgame studies. I wanted to put this material
under the microscope one more time. With the help of the computer
I would establish if the studies were correct, after polishing them up
in some cases.

GM Daniel King has a couple of Timman's e/g compositions in a tribute to the late GM. See PowerPlayChess - Jan Timman 1951-2026

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1142530 A classic bishop vs knight.

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1141870 Browne vs Timman

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1141791 Timman's first win against a grandmaster.

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1037385 Day - Timman World Junior