Books by Jan Timman

One of the greatest rivalries in sports history. On 10 September 1984, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov started their match for the World Chess Championship in Moscow. The clash between the reigning champion and his brazen young challenger was highly anticipated, but no one could have foreseen what was in store. In the next six years they would play five matches for the highest title and create one of the fiercest rivalries in sports history. The matches lasted a staggering total of 14 months, and the two Ks played 5540 moves in 144 games. The first match became front-page news when after five months FIDE President Florencio Campomanes stepped in to stop the match for reasons that still remain mysterious. A new match was staged and 22-year-old Garry Kasparov became the youngest World Chess Champion in history. His win was not only hailed as a triumph of imaginative attacking chess, but also as a political victory. The representative of perestroika had beaten the old champion, a symbol of Soviet stagnation. Kasparov defended his title in three more matches, all of them full of drama. In The Longest Game Jan Timman chronicles the many twists and turns of this fascinating saga. He includes his behind-the scenes impressions and takes a fresh look at the games.

All Grandmasters are able to devote themselves body and soul to actually playing a game of chess, but few indeed are able to the same when analysing the games of their fellow Grandmasters. Yet it was by this method that Timman, following the teachings of Botvinnik, trained himself to become one of the finest analysts in the world - and why his annotations to this carefully selected collection of games are acknowledged to be of a depth and quality rarely seen in chess literature. Each game is critically dissected, and each claim of a mistake backed up by hard analysis. In striving for perfection, Timman seeks to discover the truth of each game; to provide not just a wonderful annotated game, but to present the definitive evaluation behind a top-class struggle between two great minds. This book, long hailed as classic, has been fully revised by Timman for this enlarged new edition. Dutch Grandmaster Jan Timman has been one of the world's leading players since the mid-1970s. His outstanding tournament record includes victories at Linares, Wijk aan Zee, Amsterdam, Tilburg and numerous other top-class events. He is also an exceptional match player, and has been a permanent fixture in the final stages of the World Championship cycle over the past 10 years.