Michael de Verdier: Chess & Life in Ireland

After spending 8 months in Ireland working for Apple it's time to write a little something about Chess & Life in this country.
 I am located in Cork, the second largest city located in the south-west. Nicknamed Rebel City (dating back to the late 1400s and the Wars of the Roses) the city has a feel of independence and pride. At the same time people are very friendly and tolerant to the mass-invation of foreigners coming over to work for companies like Apple, Google, Blizzard, Amazon among others.
Football and rugby are popular sports here, but there are also the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) sports including hurling (a mix between lacrosse and rugby), gaelic football (rugby) and handball (squash) and rounders (baseball/cricket). 

Michael de Verdier - Elitserien

The first 3 rounds of the Swedish League was a success for my club, Eksjö SK. 
With a refurbished line-up consisting of 3 Grandmasters and 2 International Masters we had a very strong team going into the first 3 games.
In the first round we defeated the solid team Upsala ASS with 7-1. 
Only two draws were conceded (from admittedly lost positions).

Michael de Verdier: Anand-Carlsen 3-5

Before I leave the word to Michael de Verdier I have to say something about my analysis of game number six. I showed the position which not reached in the game number six.
The real position was reached before h3, gxh3, Rg6 sequence, so my analysis were two tempos down for White.
It is proved by extended analysis that in that case White really could save a draw with b2-b4.
There is no big difference in that, because if you have to play the only moves to save a draw in the position when couple of moves before that he could drew in his dream, then it is most probably that you will not find these moves.

de Verdier´s thoughts: Anand-Carlsen 2:2

For the report about games four and five, I´ll give the word to occasional guest blogger here, Mr. Michael de Verdier:
He wrote about the games, but also some general thoughts about this match.

de Verdier´s ingenious insight

Well, the tournament is approaching its finish and we can conclude that from the main favourites, only Grandelius and Tikkanen have the chance to win the tournament after today’s round.

The results went Marley’s way today, and the whole round felt as if the top players were waiting for the deciding two rounds to come.

de Verdier´s explanations - Swedish Championship

The first three rounds of the Swedish championship produced a lot of nice combinations and fascinating games. Round 4 was no worse.  
The high number of decisive games delights the spectators so far, except the members of the Swedish Facebook group “A draw is good for both players” (loose translation).

de Verdier explains - First round of Swedish championship

Today the Swedish Championship started. 

My last participation was back in 2008, but in 2010 I was the official commentator of the main tournament. 

This year is the third year in a row that I follow the event from abroad, but not with less interest, it should be mentioned.

de Verdier´s corner

My first participation in the Prague Open tournament didn’t end with a very good result. 
5½/9 and some lost Elo points was a bit of a disappointment as far as chess goes, but still I cannot be too dissatisfied with my decision to play there.
Prague is a very good destination during winter, the dark narrow streets of Old Town gives a mysterious impression and the squares are beautiful when covered with snow.
And as opposed to during the summer, you don’t have to fight off thousands of tourists to walk across the Charles Bridge , second most famous bridge in Europe (The most famous is Old Bridge in Mostar J.B.)

de Verdier´s corner - #1

It was a long time ago that I was asked to write an article for this blog about chess in Malta. The project has since then moved through a conceptual phase, one sub-conceptual and even a post-conceptual phase before starting to materialize.

I first moved to this small island in the Mediterranian in 2010, and back then my mind couldn't have been further from chess. 
Instead I was focussing on my professional career, which is still ongoing, in Malta, by the way. 

However, of course I couldn't stay away from chess for very long, and in the summer of 2011 I marked a "mini-comeback" by scoring my first IM-norm in Pardubice, Czech Republic. I still enjoy the odd tournament when I can spare the time, and my short-term goal is now to score my third and final norm for the IM-title.

Test of the new game viewer

From now on, I will again try to provide as much as possible games in this format with online viewer.
I think that this way of publishing games can be better accepted by readers.
The very first game is already published game De Verdier - Teterev, and it will be the test game with the new viewer.

De Verdier´s opinion

In action

Seeing as this is my first article for Jasmin’s blog, maybe I should start by introducing myself to its readers. My name is Michael de Verdier, I am 23 years old and I currently live in Malta where I work in the business process outsourcing industry.

I play for the same Swedish team as the blog’s famous proprietor, Eksjö SK, and have done so since the 2006/2007 season.  Although my ambitions in chess have decreased lately, I consider myself an ambitious amateur.

When me and Jasmin were looking for a tournament to play in July, we started by looking at big events in Spain such as the Benasque Open.  However, seeing as I currently live in the very south of Europe and Jasmin had spent a lot of time in his native Bosnia lately we decided to go for a more northern venue.