2 DAYS, VACATION ALLOWED, WILL BE 4 ROUNDS AND THE FINAL BETWEEN THE BEST SIX. 10 CONCURRENT PER ROUND.

Jan Hendrik Timman was born December 14, 1951 in Amsterdam. Both of his parents were mathematicians. Timman learnt to play chess at the age of 6 and soon his talent became apparent.

At the age of 14, Timman won the Dutch Junior Under 20 Championship. He qualified for the World Juniors U-20, where he finished 3rd (!) at the age of 15. In 1971 He got the IM title and three years later the GM title. Soon he would be among the world's very best players.

Timman won the Dutch Championship 9 times, and emerged as the winner in many international super tournaments, such as IBM Amsterdam 1978, Bled/Portoroz 1979, IBM Amsterdam 1981, Hoogovens (Wijk aan Zee) 1981 & 1985, Las Palmas 1981, Mar del Plata 1982, Bugojno 1984, Sarajevo 1984, Interpolis (Tilburg) 1987, Linares (1988), Euwe Memorial (Amsterdam) 1989 and the World Cup (Rotterdam) 1989.

His first success in the World Championship cycle was his win at the zonal tournament in 1978 in Amsterdam, which meant qualification for the interzonal in Rio de Janeiro in 1979. There, he almost reached the Candidates Matches.

In 1982 Timman was 2nd in the world rankings with 2655, behind World Champion Anatoly Karpov (2700). Three years later Kasparov surpassed the two, but Timman was stlll third. There was no doubt anymore: Timman was Best of the West.

He won the interzonal tournament in Taxco, 1985 convincingly and via the Candidates Tournament in Montpellier in the same year he qualified for the Candidates Matches for the first time. His first match wasn't a success: he lost to Artur Jussupow in 1986.

In the next cycle Timman beat Valeri Salov, Lajos Portisch and Jonathan Speelman, but he lost the final in Kuala Lumpur 1990 to Anatoly Karpov. In the following cycle he reached the final again, after beating Robert Hübner, Viktor Korchnoi and Artur Jussupow. He lost the final to Nigel Short, who then breached with FIDE and founded the PCA together with Garry Kasparov. Because of this, Timman played a FIDE World Championship match with Anatoly Karpov and lost with 8.5-12.5.

Timman's biggest success in rapid chess came in 1991 at the 2nd Trophee Immopar in Paris. In this knock-out tournament, Timman beat Gata Kamsky (1½–½), Anatoly Karpov (2-0), Vishy Anand (1½-½) and in the final the reigning World Champion Kasparov (1½-½). In just one weekend Timman won about US $75,000!

In March 2004 Timman won a tournament in Reykjavik and in August of that year he finished shared second at the Amsterdam Chess Tournament, behind Friso Nijboer. In 2006 Timman won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmö and he finished second at the Staunton Memorial in London.