Sebastian Siebrecht (born 16 April 1973) is a German chess grandmaster. He earned the

FIDE 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 ...

title in 1993, followed by the International Master title in 1996. He was awarded the grandmaster title in 2008 after achieving five norms.

Early life

Siebrecht was born in

Herdecke Herdecke () is a town in the district of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located south of Dortmund in the Ruhr Area. Its location between the two Ruhr reservoirs Hengsteysee and Harkortsee has earned it the nickname ...

on April 16, 1973. At the age of three, he moved with his parents to Essen. He started playing chess because he watched his father and brother playing and was interested, whereby he started playing his father. He also cites a friend in school, who was interested in chess, whom he played

blindfold chess Blindfold chess, also known as ''sans voir'', is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces and do not touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces. Moves are commu ...

with during mathematics lessons. Being a very tall man (2.02m), he made the

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

team in his school, playing for the regional (NRW) U17 section. He studied law at the Ruhr-University Bochum.

Chess career

In 1993, Siebrecht earned his

title, and three years later, gained his International Master title. He achieved five grandmaster norms overall, his first at the 8th International Bavarian Championships 2004, also at the 21st Chess Festival 2005, at the 8th Individual European Championship 2007 in

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 ...

and at the Kaupthing Opens 2007 and then finally the Conca della Presolana 2007. FIDE awarded him the grandmaster title despite never crossing 2500+ fide on the official FIDE ratings list. In August 2010, Siebrecht won the

Chess960 Fischer random chess, also known as Chess960 (often read in this context as 'chess nine-sixty' instead of 'chess nine hundred sixty'), is a variation of the game of chess invented by the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer annou ...

competition in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...

. Siebrecht has been known to come up against cheaters in his over-the-board games. First in 2011, in the German Championships,

Christoph Natsidis was found with a

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

analyzing the current position he was in. A year later, Falko Bindrich had his game declared lost after he refused to hand over his smartphone and was later suspended from over-the-board play.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Siebrecht, Sebastian Chess grandmasters German chess players 1973 births Living people People from Herdecke Sportspeople from Arnsberg (region) Ruhr University Bochum alumni