From the day Dresden won its bid to host the world's 38th Olympiad they started preparing. And what a show it was right from the opening ceremony.

When I arrived at Dresden airport I immediately looked for the Olympiad logo, and was met by eight smiling faces – what a welcome to Dresden.

As one person was putting together my ID pass, another was looking at the list to see which hotel I was going to stay in. A voice said: "They are staying in The Westin Bellevue."

He was one of the 250 volunteers who helped two of my chess team players and me to locate the driver.

The next morning, as I walked down for breakfast, it was Guten Morgen after stepping out of the elevator into a lobby, where there were beautiful floral arrangements outside one of the dining rooms. I was told my breakfast room was further down the hall. Other teammates joined me at our big round table and breakfast was a large buffet with a wonderful variety.

In the first round, the pairings had Bermuda playing Syria, who won all four games. Day two was another losing day for Bermuda. But on day three Bobby Miller (pictured) pulled off the first win and Nick Faulks followed with another, when we met the team from Madagascar.

For a few days the zeros were piling up and we could see just how much work our team needed to do. It was not our best performance, that is in all of the Olympiads I know about.

However, we always give the players a Bermuda party. This time, from a pool of 1,792 players and volunteers, we had about 900-1,000 who enjoyed their party night. And for those members of the organising committee, who were working so hard to make so many people happy, I gave them a thank-you party. Dresden was snowing and cold for a few days, but the people were so warm.

Here is the first winning game for Bermuda, played by Bobby Miller playing White and Josa Rambalohery playing Black.

In looking at diagram1, and knowing it's Black to move, I tried to think of Black's best options.

But Miller had the answer to that, when Black moved his queen to a5 attacking the rook pawn. But Miller's bishop's c4 move put a stop to that.

In diagram 2, it is White to move and if you look at diagram 3, you'll see the beautiful rook sacrifice that Miller made in move 14.

Now White can't take the rook right away, nor could he capture the e5 pawn, because Qxf7 will be checkmate. When Miller made move 16 and called check, Rambalohery blocked it with his queen. To his surprise Miller placed his rook on the open file and called check again. This time, seeing his queen was going to be taken, Rambalohery resigned.

White: Bobby Miller

Black: Josa Rambalohery

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. h3 Bxf3 6. Qxf3 dxe5 7. dxe5 e6 8. Nc3 Bb4 9. Bd2 c6 10. 0-0-0 Qa5 11. Bc4 Nxc3 12. Bxc3 Bxc3 13. bxc3 Nd7 14. Rxd7 Qa3+ 15. Kb1 Kxd7 16. Qxf7+ Qe7 17. Rd1+

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