Grandmaster Alexandre Le Siège was born in Montreal on August 18, 1975. He has won three Canadian championships and represented Canada in World Championship qualifying events.
A chess prodigy, Alexandre was first introduced to the game at age six. He began playing in local events organized by the educational organization Chess 'N Math, and had a Candidate Master rating by age 11. His first important successes were in 1987-8, when he tied for 1st-2nd with Serge Gagnon in the Canadian Cadet Championship with 8/9, repeating in the year following (1988) with the same score for sole share of 1st. At age 14, he was winning the Canadian Junior Championship in 1989, and in 1991, he scored 8.5/9 in his 3rd win of a Canadian Cadet Championship.
At age 16 he won the 1992 Canadian Chess Championship at Kingston, Ontario, defeating grandmaster Kevin Spraggett in the key game, and this made him the second-youngest Canadian champion ever, after Daniel Abraham Yanofsky, who was also 16 when he won in 1941. He was awarded the IM title, and qualified for the 1993 Interzonal Tournament at Biel, Switzerland.
Le Siège won the Canadian title again in 1999 at Brantford and in 2001 at Montreal with a tie-break match held in Brantford. He earned his third GM norm at the 1999 Quebec Open in Montreal, making him the first Canadian Francophone to earn the highest title in chess. He represented Canada in Olympiad Team chess events, twice on top board, with success.
Le Siège had been virtually retired from competitive chess until a match(2) with Evgeny Bareev in 2015 saw him return. Le Siège scored 4.5 (+4-3=1) at 3rd board for the Canadian Olympiad team in 2016 and won the (2nd place went to past Canadian Olympiad team member Bator Sambuev and top seed as of June) Championnat Ouvert du Québec(4) in July.
Teams
He accumulated 28 points in 50 team Bled Olympiad (2002) games (other olympiads attended: 1992, 1998-2002 - the 2 most latter as high as 1st board).
He joins Fabiano Caruana, Eric Hansen, Michael Kleinman, Aman Hambleton, Lefong Hua, Elias Oussedik and Robin van Kampen on the Montreal Chessbrahs(5) team.
References / Sources
(1) http://www.olimpbase.org/ (Olympiad & team chess chronological archives),(2) http://www.chess.ca/newsfeed/node/605 (Canadian zone site),
(3) Wikipedia article: Alexandre Lesiege (player summary in wikipedia),
(4) http://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/activite/...,
(5) http://chessbrah.tv/about-chessbrah/ (joining their PRO chess league team).
Kibitzing
