Timman's Triumphs: My 100 Best Games
GM Jan Timman has created his own monument: "Timman's Triumphs". The book contains Timman's selection of his 100 best games. Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) 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". Timman was not only a strong player but is also a prolific writer. His book "Timman’s Titans: My World Chess Champions" was awarded English Chess Federation 2017 Book of the Year.
The book is much more than a collection of his best games. It provides a unique historical perspective of chess over the past 50 years. In addition, Timman's analysis is refreshing as it based on his own thinking, and engines are just used for quality assurance. Furthermore, it is interesting to see which games could stand the test of time now that we are all equipped with large games databases and 3500-engines.
The book is structured based on
Chapter 1 The road to the top (1967-1977)
Chapter 2 The blockade (1978-1980)
Chapter 3 Best of the West (1981-1985)
Chapter 4 The battle for the world title (1986-1993)
Chapter 5 The world title starts getting out of reach (1994-2000)
Chapter 6 In the new millennium (2001-2019)
For an impression of the type of analysis in the book, please have a look at Timman's analysis of his win against Viktor Kortchnoi in Las Palmas (1981). The game included an adjournment, bringing back nostalgic feelings of pre-engine times.
The book is available on ForwardChess for $23.99 and through Amazon (paperback $32.95, Kindle $18.99). The advantage of ForwardChess over Kindle is that you have a chessboard next to the text to replay and the games and it includes Stockfish for game analysis.
Ben Johnson interviewed Jan Timman in his Perpetual Chess Podcast Episode 196. The interview is not only about the book but also includes stories about Fischer, Spassky, Kasparov, and Karpov. An interview that you should not miss!
