Jan Timman 1951-2026 - 1951-2026

Jan Timman, the Dutch number one chess player for many years and World number two in January 1982, has passed away at the age of 74.

Timman first qualified for an Interzonal in 1979 and was a Candidate between the years of 1986 and 1996.

He fought a 24 game match for the FIDE World Chess Championship against Anatoly Karpov in 1993. His most impressive tournament win was the 1991 Immopar Rapid in Paris, this was a knockout where he beat Gata Kamsky, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, and Garry Kasparov. Timman was a very successful tournament player, especiallyin the 1980s and his career results are more than comparable with the legendary Bent Larsen.

Timman had a Universal and varied style and at his best his games were of the very highest quality. He notedin his book Timman's Triumphs that there were frequently errors in conversion of advantages, even in his best games, and also noted too many dubious positions with black, these were the key downsides to his play.

That games collection was just one of his many excellent books, he was also a renowned study composer. His last games were in the Dutch Championship in July 2024 where he lost toErwin L'Ami in the first round of this knockout tournament. He announced that he was retired from over theboard play in May 2025.