Jan Timman

Jan Hendrik Timman (14 December 1951 – 18 February 2026) was 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 won the Dutch Chess Championship nine times and was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship several times. He lost the title match of the 1993 FIDE World Championship against Anatoly Karpov.

Early career Jan Timman was born on 14 December 1951 in Amsterdam. He was the son of mathematics professor Reinier Timman and his wife Anneke, who as a schoolgirl was a mathematics student of former world champion Max Euwe. His older brother, Ton (1948–2014), 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 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. 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, Reykjavík 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 in 1981 and 1985, 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 Immopar Rapid Tournament in 1991, a weekend event which attracted a huge amount of prize money.

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 continued to play actively. In 2004 he participated in a rapid tournament in Reykjavík and was equal second at Amsterdam. He played in the gold medal-winning Dutch team at the European Team Chess Championships 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.

Personal life and death Timman married twice, and had a son and a daughter, Arthur and Dehlia, from his first marriage to a Dutch woman of Suriname origin. His daughter Dehlia has been politically active with the Democraten 66 party. Timman himself voted for the Labour Party.

Timman died on 18 February 2026, at the age of 74, after being "seriously ill" for some time.

Writings Timman was one of the chief editors of the magazine New In Chess. His book The Art of Chess Analysis (1980) is widely considered one of the modern classics of chess literature.

Timman's Titans won the 2017 ECF Book of the Year award.

Other books authored by Timman include Studies and Games (1996); Fischer, World Champion! (2002), an account of the 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 1962 Candidates Tournament; and The Art of the Endgame (2023).

Edward Winter, commenting on the book Chess the Adventurous Way: Timman's Selected Games (1996), wrote, "[Timman] presents 80 of his games, annotated in characteristic brilliant style."

Playing style Timman liked 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. Raymond Keene described Timman's playing style as that of "a fighter, in the mould of Emanuel Lasker".

Example game

This game, played between Timman and Garry Kasparov in Hilversum on 17 December 1985, is a good example of Timman's style: