Overview
My father taught me and my sister to play chess in 1976, when I was five years old. I quickly became addicted, and still play a lot 30 years later. I play chess in the Nationalliga A and in the 1. Bundesliga of Switzerland with the team Wollishofen 1 with Michael Prusikin, Roger Moor, Olivier Moor, Michael Hochstrasser, Rico Zenklusen, Fabian Mäser, Andreas Umbach, Ralph Bauert, Thomas Wyss, Simon Bohnenblust and Marco Gähler. In the Nationalliga I'm the captain of Wollishofen 1.Martin's chess program
I wrote a chess program called Muse. It is not particularly good, but it is decent for an amateur program. I stopped working on it in 2004, because I couldn't manage to improve it with the little time I had for it. Muse is a Winboard / UCI compatible chess engine, i.e. you need an interface to use it with (such as Winboard, Arena or a Chessbase program). Read more about it and download it.Martin's chess games
I have played lots of games, but most of them remain unknown. However, I just noticed that there is this website called www.chessgames.com which publishes games of patzers like me. You can replay some of my chess games there. Among those games that are published there, my favorites are #14 against GM Korotylev and #21 against IM Klauser, although I blundered a completely winning position to a draw there. If you want to look at Martin-at-his-worst, I can recommend my pathetic losses to GM Nemet (#7) and IM Züger (#15).Martin's chess puzzles
In july 2000, I played at the Swiss chess championship in Pontresina. For those who missed it I've got my Pontresina Puzzles! These puzzles are quite old in the meantime, but I still like them. I believe that solving puzzles is one of the best ways to improve in chess, much better than studying obscure endgames that will never occur in your games, or learning 20 moves of opening theory by heart.Highlights
Among the highlights in my chess "career" are:- Swiss junior champion 1990 in Lausanne
- Participating in the student world championship in Sofia 1994
- Club champion of Wollishofen 1997
- Swiss 'Bundesmeister' 1997 in Wettingen
- Winner of the Team Cup 1997 with Bern/Zytglogge I
- Team champion of Berne with the now defunct team Unischach Ilime I, 1998
- Club champion (and 'Kreismeister' of the Kreis 2 of Zürich) of Wollishofen 1998
- Swiss tennis-chess champion 1998 together with Thomas Wyss
- Promotion to the Nationalliga A 1998 with the team Wollishofen I
- Team champion of Berne 1998/99 with "Schachklub Bern I"
- Over easter 1999 and 2001 I was chess coach together with Bernhard Seybold (99) and Andreas Umbach (01) in the swiss "Mädchenschachlager" (Swiss Girl's Chess Camp ?!), which was expertly organised by Silvia Wieland and Sandra Walther.
- Blitz champion of Wollishofen 1999/2000
- Promotion, again :-), to the Nationalliga A 2000 with the team Wollishofen I.
- My first (and up to now only) win against a grandmaster, Gheorghiu, in 2001.
- Swiss "Gruppenmeister" with the team Wollishofen I 2001.
- Remaining in the top league in Switzerland, the "Nationalliga A" with Wollishofen I, in 2001.
- Playing blitz chess at the Waikiki beach tables during my postdoc year in Honolulu in 2002
- My first IM norm and 6th place at the Swiss championship 2003 in Silvaplana.
- Hanging on once again in the Nationalliga A with Wollishofen I in 2003, this time as team captain.
- Fide Master title at the old age of 32 in 2004
- Career best result in my 5th season (2005) in the highest Swiss League with 5.5/8 and a performance of 2414
My current national rating: 2312
My current international rating: 2319
Chess links
Here are some of my favorite chess links:- The Chess Cafe
- The Week in Chess
- Chessbase
- My chess club, Wollishofen
- My former chess club, the Chess Club Berne.
- Chesspresso is a free chess database tool written by a friend of mine, Bernhard Seybold.
This page was last updated on
June 5th,2006 using 