Teunis (Ton) Sijbrands (born 15 December 1949, in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

) is a Dutch

international draughts International draughts (also called international checkers or Polish draughts) is a strategy board game for two players, one of the variants of draughts. The gameboard comprises 10×10 squares in alternating dark and light colours, of which onl ...

player who became world champion in 1972. The next year, he successfully defended his title in a match against

Andris Andreiko Andris Andreiko (17 October 1942 – 10 March 1976) was a three-time (1968, 1969, 1972) world champion and European champion (1974) in draughts. He also won eight national titles in 1961, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1970–1972, 1975. Death Andreiko was an ...

. In 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1988 he was the national Dutch champion. Sijbrands also had a weekly column about draughts in the Dutch national

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

de Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized c ...

'' and wrote several books about the game. He also made major achievements in simultaneous blindfold draughts. In 2002 he won 17 games and played 5 draws from a total 22 games, which equals a score of approximately 88%. On 18 December 2004, in the Dutch village of

Lutten Lutten ( Dutch Low Saxon: ''Luttn'') is a village in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is located in the municipality Hardenberg, about south-west of Coevorden. History The village was first mentioned in 1532 as Lotten, and means "low lyi ...

, 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 5 October 2007 at

Tilburg University Tilburg University is a public research university specializing in the social and behavioral sciences, economics, law, business sciences, theology and humanities, located in Tilburg in the southern part of the Netherlands. Tilburg University h ...

, he broke his own record again. This time he played 25 games, winning 21 and drawing 4. After losing the record to his compatriot Erno Prosman, Sijbrands regained it in September 2009 when he played 28 simultaneous games, winning 18, drawing 7 and losing 3.Sijbrands recovers simultaneous world record
,

Radio Netherlands Worldwide Radio Netherlands (RNW; nl, Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) was a public radio and television network based in Hilversum, producing and transmitting programmes for international audiences outside the Netherlands from 1947 to 2012. Its services i ...

, September 26, 2009 Prosman recovered the world record on 7 July 2012 in Gouda, Netherlands. He played 30 games, winning 17, losing 5 with 8 draws, a score of exactly 70%. Sijbrands regained the world record once more on 19–21 December 2014 in Hilversum, Netherlands. He played 32 games with 14 wins and 18 draws.

References

1949 births Living people Dutch columnists Dutch draughts players Players of international draughts Writers from Amsterdam {{Board-game-stub