„I am an 'old dog' in CC-chess (still learning new tricks)! Aged 63, retired financial risk-analist. Dutch, but I live in Brazil since 2022 with my wife in the state of Pará, in a small city close to the equator. Besides chess, I spend my time on working on our ground (around 4,500m2), bicycle training (tough conditions here), watching movies and developing chess tools in Python (using AI, a new hobby, but I have programmed in VBA, especially actuarial formulas and reports).“

According to the ICCF tables, one of Michiel's greatest achievements was winning the Category 12 tournament USA Invitational 2020-A, in which he achieved the most recent of his eight GM norms. But he himself considers winning the Bohatirchuk 110 Memorial to be his greatest success. A category 11 tournament (2002-2005) that he won with 11/14 including 8 wins and 6 draws.

With a touch of nostalgia, he recalls „But hey, it was fun writing all these postcards, waiting 4 months to see a move come back from Russia and analysing my games on a small chessboard while using the public transport to work.“

Three years later Michiel reached his highest rating of 2610 in 2008 during the Simon Webb Memorial (category 15), where he finished in a top position (5th out of 13). In one of his next tournaments, the 17th Olympiad Final on board 5 (2009-2011), he failed to match his previous performances and slipped to a rating of 2531 by 2012.

But he has a simple explanation for that: „I was playing 50 or 60 games simultaneously against other top players while engaged in work and travel (days of 12 hours or more). Some games I lost because of one error. It doesn't matter. I could have been number 1 if I had limited my gameload to 12 or 14, but that was never my style.“

Since then, despite the deflationary tendencies of the rating system as a result of increased draw rates, he has regained some rating points and stabilised.