Yannick Pelletier
Switzerland, 32 years old
Elo: 2569
Date and place of birth: 22.9.1976 in Biel
Lives in: Montpellier
National ranking: 3
Best world ranking: 69th (January 2003)
Previous results in Biel: 1997 (6th), 1998 (5th), 1999 (5th), 2001 (4th),
2002 (5th), 2003 (4th), 2004 (4th), 2005 (3rd), 2006 (5th), 2007 (3th)
Welcome to Biel
Yannick Pelletier settled in 2007 in Montpellier, along with his girlfriend
Sophie Milliet, who is also a chess player. Nevertheless, the best grandmaster
“made in Switzerland” will always feels at home at the Biel
International Festival, which he has been attending for two decades, and
in which he participated for the first time in the grandmaster tournament
in 1997, when he was 20.
Every year, the pre-tournament script looks the same: he is ranked last
at the start of the grandmaster tournament, but he takes the best of the
situation, and resists his opponents – most of whom are better ranked
than he is. In the last ten years, he never finished “his”
competition at the last rank. Even better: in 2005 and 2007, he finished
third, ahead of impressive players such as Judit Polgar, Teimur Radjabov
or Alexander Grischuk.
This summer, Yannick Pelletier (2569) has 206 fewer Elo points than Magnus
Carlsen (2765), who is the top-seeded player in Biel, and 100 fewer than all
other contenders. History has shown that the chessboard reality can change
on one given day. Didn’t the French-Swiss player beat Magnus Carlsen
12 months ago? Yannick Pelletier is not overwhelmed by his opponents.
His pragmatism, his ambition and his fighting spirit contribute to his
good performances.
Pelletier was crowned three times individual Swiss champion, and four
times with the Biel Chess Society. This season, he competed in many national
team championships with Zurich (in Switzerland), Werder Bremen (in Germany)
and Clichy (in France), where he became national champion a few weeks
ago. He is fluent in French, German, English, Spanish, and Russian.
Simon Kümin, Olivier Breisacher |
