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 Passing of the Dutch "Hippie" Grandmaster Jan Timman


One of the late 20th Century greats of international chess, GM Jan Timman, passed away Wednesday, February 18th at the age of 74. At one point he was ranked third behind Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. He edited and wrote for New In Chess magazine and was a guest on the New In Chess podcast last November discussing endgame studies. 


For those not yet of a certain age, I highly recommend this short documentary from 1979 that features a quite youthful Timman along with fellow Durch players Hans Ree and Hein Donner. How many empty packs of cigarettes does Donner collect from the chess table after drawing a tournament game with Timman?  I counted four... 


The Love for Wood (1979) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E48r-JTSAVM&t=304s 

More on Timman's career and passing can be found at the following links. 

https://en.chessbase.com/post/jan-timman-1951-2026

https://www.newinchess.com/blog/post/in-memoriam-jan-timman-14-december-1951-%E2%80%93-18-february-2026

https://new.uschess.org/news/jan-timman-1951-2026 



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