PICTURED above is Grandmaster Nick de Firmian, who was playing in the Bermuda International Open last weekend. It was a pleasure to play with so many players of such calibre.Thanks to our sponsor Nick Faulks, who not only gave out a large cash prize to the players who won, but also gave a return air ticket to the overall winner so that he could come back to defend his title.

Another big thanks goes out to Nigel Freeman for all he has done to bring these players and their spouses to the island. Keeping all these people happy was a big job but Faulks and Freeman did just that.

De Firmian has been our national coach for the last three Chess Olympiads — in Bled, Slovenia, Calvia, Majorca and Turin, Italy. He goes over the opening moves of our opponents to help us understand their style of play so that we can try to work out a counter-attack.

We could not have had a better man to teach us than the man who wrote the book itself, Modern Chess Openings. There are three stages in a chess game — the opening, the middle and the endgame.

To a lot of chess players, his book is the blueprint for the start of your game, i.e. the opening. De Firmian has won the United States Championship three times, which goes to show he really is one of the best.

And in the photo with him above is lucky Logan Ball, a seven-year-old pupil at Warwick Academy and an eager student of chess.

Nick, 49, was pleased to meet Logan; he autographed the photo above, autographed a copy of last month’s edition of Chess Life magazine and even requested his own copy of the photo you see.

This week’s game is de Firmian from USA playing white and Conrad Ho from Canada, who is playing black.

I dare not be analytical about my great teacher, the game will say it all. However, in diagram 1 Ho has an attack on de Firmian’s queen and bishop. In diagram 2 de Firmian is exchanging queens or he gains with his next move pawn e6.

In the end de Firmian won. Thanks to all the local players and to the management and staff of Somerset Country Squire.

White — de Firmian

Conrad — Ho>

Bermuda Open 2007

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 Ne7 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 b6 7. Qg4 Ng6 8. h4 h5 9. Qg3 Ba6 10. Ne2 Kf8 11. Rh3 Qe8 12. a4 c5 13. Be3 Kg8 14. dxc5 bxc5 15. Bxc5 Nd7 16. Bd4 Qb8 17. f4 Ne7 18. Qe3 Nf5 19. Qd2 Qd8 20. Ng3 Bxf1 21. Nxf5 exf5 22. Kxf1 Qa5 23. Qd3 g6 24. Qb5 Qxb5+ 25. axb5 Kg7 26. e6+ Nf6 27. Ra6 fxe6 28. Rxe6 Rhf8 29. Rhe3 Rab8 30. Bxf6+

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