Name: Yannick Pelletier Birthday: 22.09.1976 Title: GM Rating: 2581 Playchess handle: YannickPelletier

Career highlights
I learnt how to play chess at the age of 7. My father taught me the rules but I played my first games with my grandfather. Despite the fact that I quickly went to my town's chessclub, I did not progress very quickly. I got the title of Swiss champion U16 in 1991, the IM-title in 1995 and the GM title in 2000. I won the national championship 3 times, in 1995, 2000 and 2002. My highest rating was 2624 in the list on January 1st 2003. It is the first time that a Swiss-born player hit the 2600 limit. Unfortunately, since then, I have gone down again.
I have been playing for several years in team-championships in Switzerland (for the Biel team), Germany (Werder Bremen) and France (Mulhouse). As those teams all have a very good spirit, I feel very well there.
After graduating from school in 1996, I decided to try it as a professional chessplayer. No obvious decision considering the situation of chess in Switzerland and the fact that the cost of life is very high here. But as things go well enough, I have no reason to change direction. The fact that I love the chessplayer's way of life, with all travels it inculdes, certainly helps!

Goals
My goal is quite easy: I would like to play interesting games, good chess. Some say that this is too modest, but it is also clear that I shall never be World Champion! So I content myself with keeping on learning chess.

Hobbys
Thanks to my contacts with many good friends I have in the chessworld, I got the chance to learn several languages. Writing to these friends takes a part of my free time. Besides, I obviously like reading, listening to music (my preference goes to classical music), watching movies. I also do some sport - when the weather allows it!