Jan Timman has never been the best in the world. During the height of his chess career in the 1980s, he was known as ‘The best of the rest’, after the Russians Anatoli Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Although he was also second in the world rankings for a while, says Jan Timman. “When Kasparov wasn’t that strong yet.”
This summer Timman published a book about that other famous Dutch grandmaster: Max Euwe. The only Dutchman who was ever world champion: from 1935 to 1937. Compared to then, chess has changed almost beyond recognition.
They never played against each other, Timman and Euwe. But once it didn’t make much difference, says Timman on a sunny terrace at the Korenmarkt in Arnhem, the city where he lives. That was in 1975, six years before Euwe would die. Timman was then a freebooter with a lush head of hair, in his twenties, and had just become a grandmaster. Euwe, now emeritus professor of computer science and still dressed in a suit, was already over seventy.
Timman (now 71, still with an impressive head of hair): “We were going to play a short match, organized by the AVRO, which neither of us was really looking forward to. I already knew Euwe quite well. We had a lot of respect for each other and I wouldn’t have liked to win. And he doesn’t like me either, I assume.”
The party was canceled due to the sudden death of Timman’s father. “Far too young, at the age of 58.”
Max Euwe has never been a mentor to him, says Timman. “I actually didn’t need that. I found it difficult to recognize a higher authority.” But he did admire Euwe, who is praised for his scientific approach to chess. The book is therefore “a tribute, in the first instance.”
It is a work for the enthusiast: it largely consists of a collection of Euwe’s best chess games. Timman spent a year and a half sifting through Euwe’s chess legacy. “Which is quite a job. He has played about 1,600 games in his life, perhaps more. Because I also found games that were not in the database.”
Could Euwe still join us at the chessboard?
“I think he could have easily won against a large number of players. But the world top… not that. You see that these people have acquired so much knowledge. And work so hard too. Which of course Euwe never did that way.”
Euwe has never been a professional chess player. After his PhD in mathematics and physics, he was, among other things, a mathematics teacher. Later, in the 1950s, he was the first professor in the Netherlands to specialize in computer science. “Computer science was really still in its infancy.” Euwe was also involved in research into the possibility of computer chess programs.
Euwe did not experience the breakthrough of the computer in chess: the historic victory of chess computer Deep Blue over Kasparov in 1997 came more than fifteen years after his death. And Deep Blue was just the beginning.
Nowadays, professionals no longer play chess against computers – that makes little sense, no one can compete with them anymore – but they use chess programs to improve themselves. To prepare and analyze games.
Timman also likes to use the computer to “ask what it thinks”. That is “fascinating,” he says. “Sometimes you see, for example, that a game was actually not as good as you first thought.”
But like the current world top, depending chess engines, he wouldn’t want to live, says Timman. “I don’t think it’s varied enough. I wouldn’t choose chess as a subject now.”
What are the days of top chess players like?
“They sit behind a computer all day. Not just traveling around and living a nice life like I used to. Of course they travel, but it’s different. Nowadays much more is arranged, whereas in the past everything was done much more precisely. It is also true that in the past you could rely much more on your talent. I think that the old chess, as it used to be, actually no longer exists.”
What should you expect now?
“Your lifestyle has to be completely right. You no longer find chess players in the bar. That used to be the case. Also world champions like [Mikhail] Tons of [Boris] Spassky loved a good glass.”
Jan Timman (1951, Amsterdam) grew up in Delft, where his father worked at the TU as a professor of mathematics. Chess was played in the backyard with other professors. His mother was also, unusually at that time, a mathematician.
His father would have liked Timman to study mathematics – and Euwe also sometimes encouraged him to do so. “My father wondered whether you could lead a good life as a professional chess player.”
Mathematics also interested him, says Timman, and one blue Monday he gave it a try. “But I didn’t want to sit in school. I didn’t want to get up at a certain time. I was not like my father and Euwe, who were quite disciplined.”
His father did not live to see the peak of his career, but he did see Timman’s first successes. Ten years after his death, he received a letter from his father’s colleague. “Very nice. My father had said to him: my son will be much more famous than I will ever be.”
Timman lived in his younger years, as he describes it, as a bohemian. In one of his previous books, Timman’s Triumphs, he reports on the days when he traveled around the world in a Volkswagen van, attended chess tournaments and ended up in nightclubs. “It was a hippie life, but with meaning. Because those hippies were just driving around.”
It has regularly been suggested that Timman could have gone even further if he had followed a different lifestyle. “That has been said, yes,” he responds. “But I am not sure.”
I read that you tried for a while to live a very disciplined life as a chess player.
“Oh yes, that was in 1971. For a very big tournament. Then I indeed agreed [schaker en later schrijver] Hans Böhm prepared very intensively. We were in a house somewhere in Gaasterland and were training and running through the woods all the time. You know it. But that didn’t go well. I lost the first five games.”
Was that related?
“Well, when you start such a tournament you have to be relaxed. Changing your lifestyle is not helpful. When we dropped the discipline afterwards, things went well. That’s the story. But it is not an example of how it should be done.”
“Well, to be honest, it might have worked, but then I would have had to adjust my whole life. I then thought: it is much more fun to live an ordinary life.”
Is it still a shame that you were never first in the world rankings or won a world championship?
“Haha. Yes. That’s too bad. Certainly.”
You can also say: second in the world is not bad.
“You always wonder: would it have been possible? But I’m not dissatisfied with it. Karpov and Kasparov were two very great champions. Kasparov is known as the strongest player of all time, in fact [de huidige nummer één van de wereld] Magnus Carlsen, if you compare their results.”
Also read this profile of Magnus Carlsen: How golden boy Carlsen got a bad boy image
A mind sport naturally becomes more difficult with age. How did you feel about losing more?
“I have to be honest, that is annoying, of course. But nothing to get terribly excited about either.”
Is that right? Because you want to win, I think.
“Yes, that is also true. You no longer have the same concentration and so on, and of course you can be quite concerned about that, but as long as you can reach a certain level, you keep doing it. This also applies to Euwe, who also played well into his seventies.”
When did you start to notice that you were getting older? Or is that impossible to indicate?
“No not really. But when I replay games from the past, I think: boy, what energy. Such a long game, which sometimes continued the next day and could last longer than ten hours; I couldn’t do that anymore. But I can’t pinpoint a moment. You can only conclude over time: it was much better then.
“That’s annoying. On the other hand, seven years ago I played against Karpov in Murmansk. We played four games and that match I won. That gave me a lot of satisfaction that I had won against Karpov.”
Chess, especially online, is on the rise among young people. Including through the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit. You still play for Chess Club Wageningen. Do you also see rejuvenation there?
“No, our team is very outdated. The people who were in it sixteen years ago when I started are still there. There are also clubs with young members. But not in Wageningen.”
You don’t play chess online yourself. Why not?
“I don’t like it. I spend a lot of time behind the screen playing chess, but not for playing. I don’t like the accelerated pace. The level is also quite low. Moreover, there are few prizes to be won. If I play for Wageningen, I also get paid for it.”
Oh yeah?
“Yes, I am not an amateur. I’m a professional. I don’t play chess for fun.”
Timman receives 425 euros per batch, he says. “When I was at my best, I got more money, but I’m okay.”
And if they said: ‘Unfortunately we can’t pay you anymore’, would you never sit behind a chessboard again?
“Well, no, then I wouldn’t play anymore. Then I would focus on endgame studies.”
The endgame is the final phase of a chess game. And an endgame study, which is not so easy to understand for the layman, is “a position with nice variants,” says Timman. “Such a study is just like a musical composition.”
Timman won several prizes with his endgame studies. “Playing is addictive, but it is not the only thing chess has to offer.”
Wouldn’t you miss it?
“With corona I haven’t played for almost two years. I didn’t think it was that bad at all.”