Jan Smeets (born 5 April 1985) is a Dutch
chess
Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
grandmaster. He is a two-time
Dutch Chess Champion.
Playing record
2004 was the year that his participation in senior tournaments began to yield encouraging results. He finished in second place in
Gouda (after
Daniel Fridman) and gained the Grandmaster title the same year. At
Dos Hermanas
Dos Hermanas (, "two sisters") is a town and municipality in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is part of the Seville metropolitan area, lying south of the city of Seville. With a population of 140,430 as of 2024, it is the second ...
the following year, he shared third behind Fridman and
Bu Xiangzhi
Bu Xiangzhi (; born December 10, 1985) is a Chinese chess player. In 1999, he became the 10th grandmaster from China at the age of 13 years, 10 months and 13 days, at the time the youngest in history. In April 2008, Bu and Ni Hua became the s ...
(with
Sergey Volkov) and at the 2005
Hengelo
Hengelo (; Tweants dialect, Tweants: ) is a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands, in the Twente region, in the province of Overijssel. It is part of a larger urban area that also includes Enschede, Borne, Overijssel, Borne, Almelo and Ol ...
Stork Young Masters event, he finished one-half point behind the Russian grandmaster
Alexander Riazantsev. This was a year of significant breakthrough for Smeets, when he recorded one of his best performances at
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee (; ) is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Corus chess tournament or the Hoogove ...
's Corus 'B' tournament, finishing equal with
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
Shahriyar Hamid oglu Mammadyarov (; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. he is Azerbaijan's highest rated chess player. His personal best rating of 2820 makes him the sixth-h ...
for a share of second place, behind
Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Boris oghlu Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; , ; born 12 March 1987) is an Azerbaijani Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster.
A former child prodigy, he earned the title of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster in March 2001 at age 14, ...
. Left in his wake were a multitude of other strong players, including
Peter Heine Nielsen
Peter Heine Nielsen (born 24 May 1973) is a Danish chess trainer and player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1994. He has won a record nine consecutive World Chess Championship titles as a coach, working with Viswanathan Ana ...
,
Ivan Cheparinov
Ivan Cheparinov (; born November 26, 1986) is a Bulgarian chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster. He is a four-time Bulgarian Chess Championship, Bulgarian champion (2004, 2005, 2012, 2018). Cheparinov competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2005, 2007, ...
,
Alexander Onischuk,
Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, five-time World Rapid Chess Championship, World Rapid Chess Champio ...
and
Predrag Nikolić.
He played successfully at the Essent Open in
Hoogeveen
Hoogeveen (; or '' 't Oveine'') is a municipality and a town in the Dutch province of Drenthe.
Population centres
Elim, Fluitenberg, Hoogeveen and Noordscheschut, which still have the canals which used to be throughout the town. Other v ...
in 2007, finishing once more as runner-up, this time with
Friso Nijboer,
Jan Werle and
Evgeny Postny, behind surprise winner
Eltaj Safarli. In 2008, there were a number of excellent results; he was the winner of the Dutch Championship at
Hilversum
Hilversum () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is ...
and finished third at the
Howard Staunton Memorial Tournament, after
Michael Adams and
Loek van Wely, but ahead of
Jan Timman
Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...
,
Ivan Sokolov and
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, columnist, coach and commentator who has been the FIDE Director for Chess Development since September 2022. Short earned the title of grandmaster at the ...
. He took a share of fifth place at the
EU Individual Open Chess Championship, was selected to represent the Netherlands at the
Dresden
Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
Olympiad
An olympiad (, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the Ancient Olympic Games, ancient and Olympic Games, modern Olympic Games.
Although the ancient Olympics were established during Archaic Greece, Greece ...
and shared second place in the four player Essent (Crown Group) Tournament, after Ivan Sokolov and equal with former World Junior Champion
Ahmed Adly. It was also a year in which his
Elo rating
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor.
The Elo system wa ...
broke through the 2600 barrier. In 2010 Smeets won the Dutch Championship for the second time.
Smeets is a very keen player of team chess and competes in the national leagues of Germany (for
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...
team Solingen SG 1868), Belgium and the Netherlands (where he drew with former World Champion
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (; born 25 June 1975) is a Russian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. He was the World Chess Champion#Split title (1993–2006), Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the 14th undisputed World Ch ...
).
Notable games
Mamedyarov vs Smeets Wijk aan Zee, Corus 'B', 2005, Caro-Kann, 0-1
Smeets vs Short London, Staunton Memorial, 2008, Closed Spanish, 1-0
References
2007 Corus biography2005 Corus 'B' final standings
'Wild Knights' article/interviewEssent 2008 resultDos Hermanas 2005 result
External links
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*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smeets, Jan
1985 births
Living people
Chess Grandmasters
Dutch chess players
People from Oegstgeest
Sportspeople from Leiden
Chess Olympiad competitors