January 17 2005 - Aviv Friedman

Some readers of my column might recall that last year I mentioned my soft spot to GM Jan Timman who was 'the best in the West' when I started playing chess. This year the Dutch legend is making a few appearances as the senior audience commentator at the chess Pavilion. In the spacious commentary room with the largest demonstration boards I have ever seen there was 'standing room only' yesterday for Timman's first visit.

The very nice thing about Jan's approach is the fine combination between a serious approach and a high level of understanding of chess but at the same time speaking to the captive audience's at eye level. After all, among the listeners were strong, titled players but also absolute amateurs. The veteran GM proved indefatigable and for over 5 hours shared his thoughts and knowledge discussing the high quality games.

Of course many commentators are quite qualified to analyze games of the GM elite, but when we speak of someone who had played with them for so many years, knows all of them personally and played not only with them but also with their predecessors of the older generations, you always get something extra. For example, lets mention Timman's reaction when he learned that the game between top seed Vishy Anand and vice champion Peter Leko was in the most analyzed variation of the most popular defense in chess: The Sveshnikov Sicilian.

The new generation of young GM's will surely know many of the intricacies of this complex opening, and would likely be able to quote some of the topical sub-lines, many of which start well into move 20 and beyond. Some of the younger ones might not even know that the line is actually named after a person ( Russian GM Evgeny Sveshnikov) let alone the evolution of the opening. Not Timman. In a reminiscent voice he mentioned how he, himself was a witness to the debut of this variation when Sveshnikov played it for the first time against none other than former World Champion Boris Spassky.

He recalled how Spassky won after a very exciting battle and that after the game another former World Champ, the late Tigran Petrosian who was known for his positional, prophylactic chess approached Sveshnikov and admonished him for playing such an 'anti positional' opening with such an obvious hole on the d5 square and a backwards pawn on d6. If only he knew the size of the Pandora's Box that was opened with the introduction of the line!