Eric Lobron (born 7 May 1960) is a German

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

grandmaster. A former two-time national champion, he has been awarded the title Grandmaster by the

World Chess Federation The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

(FIDE).

Biography

Born in

Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Germantown ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Deitscheschteddel'') is an area in Northwest Philadelphia. Founded by German, Quaker, and Mennonite families in 1683 as an independent borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area, which is ab ...

, United States, he moved with his family to Germany at the age of five and was raised in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

. It was soon apparent that he had a talent for the game and he became the national junior champion in 1978. Just two years later, his continued rapid progress enabled him to attain

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

status and win the West German Championship at Bad Neuenahr. Buoyed by success, it was not long before he decided to become a full-time chess professional, whereupon he broke from his law degree to embark on the international

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition amo ...

circuit. There were several notable achievements from the outset, including victories at

Biel , french: Biennois(e) , neighboring_municipalities= Brügg, Ipsach, Leubringen/Magglingen (''Evilard/Macolin''), Nidau, Orpund, Orvin, Pieterlen, Port, Safnern, Tüscherz-Alfermée, Vauffelin , twintowns = Iserlohn (Germany) B ...

1981 (with

Vlastimil Hort Vlastimil Hort (born 12 January 1944) is a German chess Grandmaster. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, but never qualified f ...

Ramat Hasharon Ramat HaSharon ( he, רָמַת הַשָּׁרוֹן, ''lit.'' '' Sharon Heights'', ar, رمات هشارون) is a city located on Israel's central coastal strip in the south of the Sharon region, bordering Tel Aviv to the south, Hod HaSharon t ...

1982 and

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

1982 (with

Lev Polugaevsky Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky ( rus, Лев Абрамович Полугаевский, p=pəlʊɡɐˈjefskʲɪj; 20 November 1934 – 30 August 1995) was a Soviet chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE i ...

). His qualification as a Grandmaster occurred the same year and he followed up with several more tournament wins, either outright or shared; at

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Kavkasian 1983 and

Manhattan 1985 (both invitation tournaments), Biel 1986 (again with

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and

Ter Apel Ter Apel (; Gronings: ''Troapel'') is a village with a population of 8,866 residents in the municipality Westerwolde in the northern Netherlands, in the province Groningen in the region Westerwolde. The town lies on the stream Ruiten Aa, which ...

(both 1987),

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

s 1988 (with

Simen Agdestein Simen Agdestein (born 15 May 1967) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, chess coach, author, and former professional footballer as a striker for the Norway national football team. Agdestein won eight Norwegian Chess Championships between 1982 an ...

), the strong

(Open) 1992 as sole winner, Wiesbaden and

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

(both 1993),

Bad Zwesten Bad Zwesten is a municipality in the Schwalm-Eder district of Hesse, Germany. Geography Location Bad Zwesten lies about 8 km southeast of Bad Wildungen on the river Schwalm, which belongs to the Eder watershed. North of the community begin ...

2000 and

Wijk aan Zee Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') 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 Coru ...

2003. Meanwhile, he was West German Champion for a second time in 1984. In attempting to reach the latter stages of the ( PCA) World Championship, he scored well at the

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

1993 qualifying tournament, outperforming many players rated more highly, including

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the yo ...

Veselin Topalov Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess International Grandmaster, grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Championship, World Chess Champ ...

and

Evgeny Bareev Evgeny Ilgizovich Bareev (russian: Евгений Ильгизович Бареев; born 21 November 1966) is a Russian-Canadian chess player and trainer. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1989, he was ranked fourth in the FIDE world r ...

. In team chess, he was for many years a stalwart of the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

and represented Germany at all of the

Olympiads An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not unti ...

between 1980–96, except for the event held at

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

in 1986. At the

European Team Chess Championship The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...

(ETC) he played three times, in 1983, 1989 and 1992, being honoured with selection at top board on the first and last occasions. At the Olympiad, he earned an individual bronze medal for his board three performance in 1990 and at the ETC, earned a team bronze in 1989. Reputed to have been a successful trader on the stock market during profitable times, he acquired 'celebrity' status in 2004, when he became romantically involved with Estonian supermodel

Carmen Kass Carmen Kass (born 14 September 1978) is an Estonian model and former political candidate. She has worked as the face of brands such as Chanel, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Valentino, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, Givenchy, a ...

, herself a keen chess player and President of the Estonian Chess Federation.Chessbase - Lobron/Kass relationship
/ref> On the lead up to the 2008 Olympiad, Kass campaigned to bring the event to her home country, but ultimately lost out to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

's bid. At the peak of his chess career, Eric Lobron had an

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ch ...

of 2625. Since the mid-2000s he has played little over-the-board chess, but competes online at The

Internet Chess Club The Internet Chess Club (ICC) is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC had over 30,000 subscribing members in 2005.John Black, Martin Cochran, Martin Ryan Gardner"Lessons Learned ...

as ''Yardbird'', where he holds one of the highest blitz ratings. He is also known to be a good player of

Backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

Notes

References

* *

External links

Lobron's games at Chessgames.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lobron, Eric 1960 births Living people German chess players Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Philadelphia Sportspeople from Wiesbaden German American