Biography of Jan Timman

Jan Timman (born December 14, 1951) is a famous Dutch chessplayer who had his greatest successes in the 1970s and 1980s. He has won the national championship of the Netherlands nine times. He was a candidate for the World Championship several times.

He played for the FIDE World Championship in 1993, losing to Anatoly Karpov. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and known as “The Best of the West”. Timman continues to play actively, and on the July 2002 FIDE rating list, he was ranked 67th in the world. With the October 2002 list, however, he fell out of the top 100.

He tied Krishnan Sasikiran for first place in the 2005 Sigeman Tournament in Copenhagen/Malmö Denmark. He is one the chief editors of the magazine New In Chess.