Ton Sijbrands

Who is Ton Sijbrands?

Teunis Sijbrands is a famous Dutch player of international draughts who became world champion in 1972. The next year, he successfully defended his title in a match against Andris Andreiko.

In 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1988 he was the national Dutch champion. Sijbrands also has a weekly column about draughts in the Dutch national newspaper de Volkskrant and wrote several books about the game.

He also made major achievements in playing blindfold simultaneous exhibitions of draughts. In 2002 he won 17 games and played 5 draws from a total 22 games, which equals a score of approximately 88%.

On December 18, 2004 in the Dutch village Lutten Sijbrands improved the world record for blindfold simultaneous draughts. In this attempt that lasted 24 hours, he won 20 out of 24 games; the other 4 were draws, which equals a score of about 92%. At his next attempt, on October 5, 2007 at Tilburg University, he broke his own record again. This time he played 25 games, winning 21 and drawing 4. After losing the record to the compatriot Erno Prosman Sijbrands regained it in September 2009 when he played simultaneously 28 games, winning 18, drawing 7 and losing 3.