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.
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, Wijk aan Zee in 1981 and 1985, Linares in 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 Immopar 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.
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 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.
Olympiad career
Timman at The Hague in 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.
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".
He 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.
↑Devreese, G (December 2011). ""Na Kasparov en Karpov was ik duidelijk de beste." Jan Timman blikt bij zijn zestigste verjaardag terug op zijn schaakcarrière". Schaakmagazine (in Dutch). 118 (6): 6–8.
↑Timman, Jan (31 August 2023) [2011]. The Art of The Endgame: My Journeys in the Magical World of Endgame Studies. New in Chess. ISBN978-90-833284-0-9.
