In 2000 he was a member of the German team that won the silver medal in the 34th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul.

Even in his childhood days he started to avidly read classic chess literature and learned a lot by himself.

After a series of further successes, among them second places at the GDR championship in Zittau 1989 and in Altensteig 1991 and victories in Andorra 1992, Lenk and Hamburg 1993 and finally his first (all-)German championship 1993 (after a 2–0 victory in the final against Thomas Pähtz) he became Grandmaster in 1994.

2001 he qualified again and won the first round in Moscow 3–1 against Sergey Volkov but lost against Ilya Smirin (0.5–1.5).

In 2002 he won the German championship in Saarbrücken again, outdistancing Alexander Graf and Florian Handke.

He won his third German national championship in 2006 in Osterburg in a tie-breaker with Vitaly Kunin and Artur Yusupov.

Thomas Luther's style is tactically oriented, which makes him a formidable opponent for even the strongest player.

The game was played in the penultimate round of the German championship 2002 and laid the ground for Thomas' later winning the title.

Black reaps the fruit of his combinatorial fireworks: the smoke has cleared and he is two pawns ahead.

In 2009 he finished his studies at the University of Hagen acquiring the title of Diplomkaufmann (German equivalent to Master of Business Administration).