Van Foreest earned the International Master title in 2016 and was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2018, at age 17. A member of the Van Foreest family, his brother Jorden won the Dutch Chess Championship in 2016, and both his great-great grandfather Arnold and great-great granduncle Dirk were three-time Dutch Champions.
Chess career
Van Foreest started playing chess aged "around six, seven".[1]
He achieved his first International Master (IM) norm at the Dutch Team Competition, from September to October 2015. He scored 7/9, which was enough for both the IM norm and Grandmaster (GM) norm.[2][3]
He achieved his second IM norm at the Amsterdam Chess Tournament in July 2016, and his third IM norm at the Hoogeveen Open in October 2016.[2]
In January 2017, he won the top amateur group at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, thus qualifying for the Tata Steel Challengers in 2018.[4]
He achieved his second GM norm at the 9th Batavia Chess Tournament in March 2017. He shared first with Bobby Cheng on 6½/9 (+6–2=1), finishing second on tiebreak.[5][6]
He won the Bruges Masters in August 2017.[7]
Van Foreest competed in the Tata Steel Challengers in January 2018, placing eleventh with a score 5½/13 (+3–5=5).[8]
He competed at the Open Dutch Championship, held from 24 July to 2 August. He shared first with Erwin l'Ami and Erik van den Doel on 7/9, achieving his third GM norm in the process.[9] He was awarded the GM title by FIDE in October 2018.[3]
Lucas has four brothers and one sister.[17][18] His eldest brother, Jorden (born 1999), became the youngest chess grandmaster in Dutch history at the age of 16, and won the Dutch Chess Championship at age 17 in 2016.[19] His sister, Machteld (born 2007), won the Dutch Girls' U10 Championship at the age of 6 and shared second place in the Dutch Girls' U20 Championship when she was 9. In 2017, she became the first girl ever to win the Dutch U12 Championship.[19] In 2022, she won the Dutch Women's Championship.
^Verseput, Steven (28 August 2015). "Een wonderlijk Gronings schaakgezin". NRC (in Dutch). Het talent zit in het bloed bij de familie Van Foreest – van het adellijk geslacht, met het predicaat jonkheer.