Timman Finally Beats Karpov In A Match

Two decades after clashing in two battles of the highest level, Jan Timman finally managed to beat Anatoly Karpov in a match. At the end of last week the two chess legends played four games in Murmansk, Russia. Timman won 2.5-1.5.

Even though the Murmansk match was of no real importance, the result was kind of historical. Especially the older Dutch chess fans will remember that Timman was the number-two player in the world, behind Karpov, in the early 1980s.

Photo courtesy Basamro Chess.

While in their prime, the two chess legends played dozens of games, and two matches, at the highest level.

Their first match was the Candidates' final in 1990 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, won by Karpov +4 =5 -0. Karpov went on to play his fifth world title match with Garry Kasparov the same year.

Three years later, when Kasparov had created the Professional Chess Association and played a match with Nigel Short under the PCA umbrella, Karpov and Timman played for the official FIDE world title. Karpov won +6 =13 -2.

Karpov and Timman had played exactly 100(!) classical games against each other before the Murmansk match. Karpov's (massive) score against the Dutch GM: +30 =61 -9.

The last time the two played was in 2013 — also a four-game match, alongside the Groningen chess festival. Karpov won one game, with three draws.

This time around it was the opposite: one victory for Timman, and three draws. After all those years, the Dutchman finally won a match against his great nemesis.

The match took place during the Basamro International Junior Chess Tournament, was held October 6-9 in Murmansk. It was truly classical chess, with two hours for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game and a 30-second increment from move 41.

The decisive game was the third, where Karpov erred in a roughly equal (though perhaps slightly more pleasant for Black) endgame.