Timman's Triumphs: A Review
Jan Timman, Timman’s Triumphs: My 100 Best Games. Alkmaar, The Netherlands: New In Chess, 2020. 349 pgs. $26.99.
Dutch Grandmaster Jan Timman (b. 1951) is sometimes called one of the greatest chess players never to win the world title. Great praise! And well-deserved! This recent collection of Timman’s “100 Best Games” shows us why this is an apt description.
In 1996, Timman published Timman’s Selected Games: Chess the Adventurous Way (https://www.amazon.com/Timmans-Selected-Games-Chess-Adventurous/dp/1857441214/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=timman%27s+selected+games&qid=1645224791&s=books&sr=1-1). It presented 80 games from 1983-1994. Only 10 games from that collection are included in this new volume. Now, a period of 52 years has been covered. Now, in analyzing his games, Timman has benefited from technology. He used Stockfish 10 and Houdini 5 engines and, for his final chapter, Stockfish 11. These tools are helpful and at points Timman notes: “the computer prefers” (33) and “the computer confirmed” (292). But the human dimension is important. Once, in a post-mortem to a victory over Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Mikhail Tal pulled up a chair and said, “Jan, I think you played a very good game today.” Timman appreciated this and notes: “The computer doesn’t entirely agree with this, but it is not always possible to play flawlessly” (198).
Timman is sad there are no longer chess clocks ticking; now there are electronic clocks. Today, “above all, professional chess is now ruled by the computer. I think that in these times I wouldn’t have become a professional chess player. Knowledge has become too important, you cannot live on your talent only” (13). Timman is glad that “my great models, my sources of inspiration, were made of flesh and blood: Mikhail Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer.” These were the players “who pointed out the course that I followed” (13). Timman was glad to make his living “by thinking”! (14) His early hard work paid off when in May 1974, Timman became “the youngest grandmaster-but-one in the world” (14). By the way, Timman was only the third Dutch player to become a grandmaster, following Euwe and Jan Hein Donner. His peak in world rankings was in 1982, when he was in second place.
This book is engaging because it is so personal. Timman’s annotations and analyses of these games share his perceptions as the games progress. In a 1991 game against Kasparov, Timman reacted to a Kasparov move: “An enormous relief” (8). Timman played 1.b3 in an English Opening for a 1972 game against Nikola Padevsky as an “experiment” to “confront him with unknown opening problems.” Timman won, but wrote: “Although it was highly successful, I never repeated the experiment. I wanted to cherish the memory of this model game” (38). Timman’s analyses are penetrating and interesting throughout.
We are able to follow Timman’s path as “The Best of the West” (ch. 3)—the best non-Soviet player—who has won the Dutch Championship nine times and been a candidate for the World Championship three times. He lost the title match of the 1993 FIDE World Championship against Anatoly Karpov. Timman recounts that this match was one of “missed chances. Five times I let a winning advantage slip, and I even lost one of those games. In the end Karpov won 6-2 with 13 draws. I was disillusioned” (176). In 2016, Timman played a four-game match against Karpov and “managed to beat him 2½ to 1½.” So, Timman exclaims: “Finally, I had my revenge!” (291).
This honesty and personalism is also reflected in Timman’s reflections on his chess career that “it was a fantastic profession, a great life, but my discipline wasn’t always optimal” (14; 245). Thus he mentions times of “alcoholic excess” (35; 279) and a (temporary) arrest for failing to report for military service (48).
When “the world title starts getting out of reach (1994-2000),” Timman had “alternating” ups and downs winning and losing tournaments, with ascendancy in the Netherlands. Yet, he confesses “a gloomy feeling prevailed: my greatest ambitions had disappeared behind the horizon” (237). Timman wrote that he had achieved his highest Elo rating at 2705 in spring 1988 (175). On the bright side, Timman includes in this collection his six victories in 1999 over six top Grandmasters.
In the new millennium (2001-2019; ch. 6), Timman asked himself: “When should a chess player stop?” (291). He acknowledged colleagues who had ended their careers around their 50th year: Karpov, Hübner, Seirawan, and Jussupow. At this point, Timman found it “increasingly interesting to work with the computer” which added a new dimension to preparing for games. While it takes a lot of time, “the computer forces you to delve ever more deeply into the investigation of opening systems” (291). Timman’s adjusted ambition was now “no longer to become World Champion, but to keep winning tournaments”—which he did! This period also included his match victory over Karpov (2016).
These “100 Best Games” are impressive when the Index of Players include chess greats: Bronstein, Karpov, Kasparov, Kortchnoi, Larsen, Smyslov, Spassky, Tal, and Topalov. Timman’s introductions to the six chapters, focus on specific time-periods, providing great contexts and highlights of his distinguished career. That career continues now and includes Timman’s contributions as a prolific chess book writer.
Timman’s Triumphs is an engaging chess book, filled with excellent instructional games which are enhanced and analyzed by Timman’s clear, incisive, and accessible style. Players at many levels will benefit from working through these games. All will enjoy Timman’s anecdotes, his honest comments, and his wisdom on strategy, position, and the feeling that “you are there” as Timman recounts his thought processes. One could start—and end—with Game 100 (2018/19 vs. Mateusz Bartel), which Timman includes as featuring “in a certain sense, many characteristic elements of my play—at its worst as well as its best” (340). Enjoy—and learn from—this splendid game collection and the wisdom of an outstanding Grandmaster!
