Jan of the golden hair
When I first saw Jan Timman, he seemed less a chess player than a figure escaped from literature. At the junior team championship in The Hague in 1967, I encountered a young man whose appearance struck me with such force that I immediately thought of Tadzio from Death in Venice. He possessed that same luminous, almost disconcerting beauty. When Luchino Visconti made his film four years later, Timman conceded nothing in male beauty to the young actor who played the part, Björn Andrésen. There was only one difficulty with Timman’s appearance: his golden, flowing locks were so abundant and so all-encompassing that when I first introduced myself, I addressed the back of his head.
It would have been neat, from a moral point of view, had so angelic a youth proved also to be a model of restraint. Life, however, rarely arranges itself to suit literary symmetry. In later years he discovered the delights of alcohol and drugs, and by 1972 I was mildly surprised that his career had not culminated in an explosion of illicit substances. His early talent for chess was enormous, as was his appetite for addictive potions. Timman himself relished telling the story. “I once tried training like Botvinnik—discipline, fresh air, Spartan regime. I lost five games in a row. So, I went back to my old habits and started scoring again!” It was the sort of remark that, delivered with a shrug, contained both confession and defiance.
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s Timman stood tall among the world’s leading players. At his peak he was regarded as the strongest non-Soviet grandmaster and bore the sobriquet “The Best of the West,” a title that reflected not only his strength but the political geography of chess at the time. He won the Dutch Chess Championship nine times and was repeatedly a Candidate for the World Championship. In 1993 he lost the FIDÉ World Championship match to Anatoly Karpov, a result that seemed less a disgrace than a confirmation of the cruel arithmetic of elite chess.
Jan was the son of Rein Timman, a professor of mathematics, and his wife Anneke, who as a schoolgirl had been a mathematics student of the former Dutch world champion Max Euwe. There was, then, a kind of hereditary logic to his gifts. At Jerusalem 1967 he played in the World Junior Championship at the age of 15 and finished third, behind Kaplan—the surprise winner—and myself in the silver-medal position. Even then he was an outstanding prospect, though prospects in chess are as common as disappointments.
He became an International Master in 1971 and rose to the rank of Grandmaster in 1974, the Netherlands’ third after Max Euwe and Jan Hein Donner. That same year he won the Dutch Championship for the first time, having finished second in 1972, and he continued to collect the title on numerous occasions through 1996. His first significant international success came at Hastings 1973/74, where he shared victory with Tal, Kuzmin and Szabó. There followed a string of tournament triumphs: Sombor 1974 with Boris Gulko; Netanya 1975; Reykjavík 1976 with Fridrik Olafsson; Amsterdam IBM 1978; Nikšić 1978; and Bled/Portorož 1979. The list is long, but in chess the accumulation of such lists is the only reliable measure of permanence.
By 1982 Timman was ranked second in the world, behind only Anatoly Karpov. It was his misfortune that this was the moment when Garry Kasparov began to make his presence felt. During the 1980s Timman won a succession of formidable events: Amsterdam IBM 1981; Wijk aan Zee in 1981 and 1985; Linares 1988; the 1989 Euwe Memorial; and the 1989 World Cup in Rotterdam. He also prevailed at Las Palmas 1981, Mar del Plata 1982, Bugojno 1984, and Sarajevo 1984.
One of his more striking later successes was the 2nd Immopar Rapid Tournament in 1991, a weekend event swollen with prize money. In this knock-out competition he defeated Gata Kamsky 1½ – ½, Karpov 2–0, Viswanathan Anand 1½ – ½, and finally the World Champion Garry Kasparov 1½ – ½, claiming approximately $75,000. His performance corresponded to an Elo rating of 2950, a figure then considered so high as to seem almost theoretical. Alas for Timman, it was his only chance to play a match against Kasparov, whose reign coincided with the Dutchman’s best years.
Timman’s world championship career began at the zonal tournaments of Forssa/Helsinki 1972 and Reykjavík 1975, where he failed to advance. After winning Amsterdam 1978 he reached the interzonal at Rio de Janeiro but did not progress further. He finished mid-table at the 1982 Las Palmas Interzonal, then won the Taxco 1985 Interzonal convincingly to qualify for the Candidates Matches for the first time, only to lose in the first round to Artur Yusupov in 1986. In the next cycle he won the 1987 Tilburg Interzonal and defeated Valery Salov, Lajos Portisch and Britain’s Jonathan Speelman, before losing the 1990 final to Karpov. In 1993 he again reached the final stage, beating Robert Hübner, Viktor Korchnoi, and Yusupov, but this time lost to another British grandmaster, Nigel Short. When Short and Kasparov conducted their world championship match outside FIDÉ’s authority, Timman was invited to contest the official title against Karpov. He lost by 12½ – 8½. It was a pattern familiar in competitive life: to come close repeatedly is a distinction, but not the one most men desire.
Timman represented the Netherlands in thirteen Chess Olympiads between 1972 and 2004, playing on top board eleven times. In 1976 he won the gold medal for best individual performance on that board, while I was a member of the English team that took the bronze medals. There is, in such shared arenas, a sense that one’s own memories are stitched into the careers of others.
Even in later years he remained active. In 2004 he finished equal first in a tournament in Reykjavík and equal second at Amsterdam. He was part of the Dutch team that won gold at the European Team Chess Championship in Gothenburg in 2005. In 2006 he won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmö and was second in the Howard Staunton Memorial in London, which I co-organised with the late Barry Martin.
In his later life Timman, already respected as an author, devoted himself with enthusiasm to the composition of endgame studies. In that demanding and rather solitary art he proved himself once more a genuine creator. It is a curious fate for a man once celebrated for golden youth and worldly excess to become, in maturity, an artist of distilled positions and quiet conclusions. Yet perhaps it is not so curious after all. Chess, like life, reduces in the end to essentials. And throughout his life, Timman’s essentials burned bright.
Candidates Playoff, Montpellier, 1985, round 2
- d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 exd4
Black is temporarily two pawns to the good, but White can win one back immediately and should Black attempt to frustrate the recapture of the other, this will incur a significant delay to his piece development.
- Bxc4 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 Nc6 7. O-O Qf6!?
A less common continuation than 7… Nf6! and …O-O to follow. The move played has in mind the possibility of following up with …Be6 and then …O-O-O, a highly aggressive intention.
- e5
White acts immediately to isolate and then target the uncoordinated Black queen.
8… Qg6 9. Nh4 Qg4 10. Ndf3 Be6 11. h3 Qe4 12. Bd3 Qd5 13. Ng5 Be7?! TN
In a novel attempt to exploit the tenuous posting of White’s knights, Black relies on tempi he simply doesn’t have. He should complete development as a priority, with 13… Nge7 14. f4 O-O-O, when Black can claim some compensation for his less coherent setup.
- Be4 Qd7?
Having just completed a sixth queen’s move from the last eight, it is evident that White has been able to capitalise on this mislocation with concrete development. Having made this decision, Black must play bold moves to extract some justification for the loss of time. So, 14… Qxe5 15. Nxe6 fxe6 (better than, 15… Qxe4?! 16. Nxc7+, and certainly superior to 15… Qxe6? 16. Re1) 16. Re1 Qd6, when Black has some material compensation for his inferior position.
- Nxe6 Qxe6 16. Bxc6+?
Perhaps overestimating the impact of Black being more advised to recapture with the pawn, than his queen. Had White here continued with, for example, 16. Nf5 Kf8 17. Nxd4 Qxe5 18. Bxc6 Rd8 19. Bxb7 Rxd4 20. Qe1 Qf6 21. Bf3 Rd8 22. Be3, Black is in existential peril.
16… bxc6 17. Qxd4 Rd8 18. Qa4 Bc5?
Black must find 18… Bxh4 19. Qxh4 Ne7 20. b3 O-O, maintaining near-equality.
- Qc2?!
Natural, but both, 19. Nf5 and Bg5 were stronger continuations.
19… Rd5 20. b4 Bd4??
Although Black is correct in declining the sacrificial b4-pawn and in maintaining the g1-a7 diagonal, the move played is more in optimism than objectivity. White is threatening Nh4-f5-g7 winning the queen. It is imperative that he find here 20… Bb6 21. Nf5 Qg6 22. Bg5 Kf8 23. Bh4, when he continues to be worse, but without any catastrophic threats to contend with.
- Nf5 Bxe5?!
Either, 21… Qg6 22. Nxd4 Rxd4 23. Qc5 Rd5 24. Qxa7; or, …Qd7 22. Nxd4 Rxd4 23. Be3 Rd5 24. Bxa7 Ne7 25. Bc5 O-O 26. a4 present more opposition, but Black is in dire straits.
- Re1 Kf8
And with this concession, making plain the cost of Black having failed to castle, it is obvious to witness the liabilities still awaiting attacks along the e-file. But even with the alternative line, 22… Ne7 23. Nxg7+ Bxg7 24. Rxe6 fxe6 25. Bb2, it is clear to see that Black’s ship has sailed.
- Bb2 Qxf5 24. Qxf5 Bh2+ 25. Kxh2 Rxf5 26. Rad1 Rd5 27. Rxd5 cxd5 28. Rc1 Black resigns 1-0
Ray’s record-breaking 208th chess book, Chess through the Looking Glass , written jointly with the late Barry Martin, the chess-playing artist, is now available from Amazon.
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