Michael Adams

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For other people called Michael Adams, see Michael Adams (disambiguation)
Michael Adams
Full name Michael Adams
Country Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Born November 17, 1971 (1971-11-17) (age 36)
Truro, Cornwall, England, UK
Title Grandmaster
FIDE rating 2729
(No. 14 on the April 2008 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating 2755 (July 2000)

Michael Adams (born November 17, 1971 in Truro, Cornwall, England, UK) is a British Grandmaster of chess. His highest ranking (in terms of rating) is world number 4, achieved several times from October 2000 to October 2002.[1] On the April 2008 FIDE rating list he is number 14 in the world and the number one British chess player with an Elo rating of 2729.

Notable have been his results in World Chess Championship tournaments. Several times a Candidate, he reached the semi-finals in 1997, 1999 and 2000. At the 2004 FIDE Championship, he reached the final, narrowly losing out to Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the tie-break games.

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[edit] Early career

Adams won the British Championship in 1989 at the age of seventeen. He won it again in 1997, jointly with Matthew Sadler and has not taken part in the Championship since. Adams also won the British Rapidplay Championship in 1995, 1996 and 1999.

Two books co-authored with his father, Bill Adams, Development of a Grandmaster (1991) and Chess in the Fast Lane (1996), discuss his early chess career.

[edit] World Championship Candidate

Adams has performed strongly in a number of World Chess Championship tournaments.

In 1993 he finished equal first (with Viswanathan Anand) in the Groningen Interzonal tournament to determine challengers for the PCA World Chess Championship 1995. This took him to the Candidates Tournament matches, where he beat Sergei Tiviakov in the quarter finals, but lost to Anand in the semi-finals.

He also qualified for the Candidates tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996, losing to Boris Gelfand in the first round of matches.

In 1997, he took part in the FIDE World Championship, which, for the first time, was a large knock-out event, the winner of which would play a match against reigning champion, Anatoly Karpov. This tournament included most of the world's top players (Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Gata Kamsky were the only notable absentees), and Adams won short matches against Tamaz Giorgadze, Sergei Tiviakov, Peter Svidler, Loek van Wely, and Nigel Short, before coming up against Anand in the final round. Their four games at normal time controls were all drawn, as were four rapidplay games at quicker time limits, before Anand won the sudden-death game, thereby eliminating Adams from the competition.

The 1999 FIDE World Championship resulted in another semi-final finish for Adams, before losing to Vladimir Akopian.[2]

Yet again, he reached the semi-finals of the 2000 FIDE World Championship before losing to eventual winner Anand.[3]

In the 2002 FIDE World Championship he won his first three rounds before being knocked out in the 'round of 16' by Peter Svidler.[4]

Adams came closest to claiming a world title at the 2004 FIDE Championship, when he reached the final, winning matches against Hussien Asabri, Karen Asrian, Hichem Hamdouchi, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Akopian and Teimour Radjabov. However, he lost to Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the final (3½-4½ after rapidplay tie-breaks, the match having been tied 3-3 after the six standard games).

As runner-up in the 2004 event, Adams was one of eight players invited to the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. He finished in equal sixth-seventh place, with a score of 5½ out of 14.

In May-June 2007, Adams participated in the Candidates Tournament to qualify for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007. In the first round he drew 3-3 with Alexey Shirov, and was beaten 2½-0½ in the rapidplay playoff.

[edit] Other results

Among his other notable results are first at Terrassa in 1991, joint first at Dos Hermanas in 1995 (with Kamsky and Karpov), joint first at Dortmund in 1998 (with Kramnik and Svidler), and clear first at Dos Hermanas in 1999, ahead of Kramnik, Anand, Svidler, Karpov, Veselin Topalov, Judit Polgar and others.

More recently, he won the fifth Howard Staunton Memorial Tournament[5] in August 2007, achieving a score of 8½/11 (six wins, five draws), picking up the top purse of £1000. Adams, the highest seeded player in the tournament by 45 ELO points, finished a full point ahead of Dutch Grand Masters Ivan Sokolov and Loek van Wely. The tournament, played in London, is an annual memorial to the British chess master Howard Staunton.[6] Prior to the start of the tournament, on August 4th, Adams married his long term girlfriend, the actress Tara MacGowran at a ceremony in Taunton, close to where they live.[7]

In September 2007, Adams took part in a match between United Kingdom and China, held in Liverpool, England. Playing alongside Adams was former World Championship challenger GM Nigel Short. This chess event was the first time in almost 15 years that the two GMs had played chess together on British soil.[6] Overall, he scored 3½/6, conceding one loss to GM Zhang Pengxiang (ELO 2649, at time of match) in round four. The UK team lost the match to China, 20-28,[8] who had also defeated a Russian chess team a few weeks before.

Adams won the 2nd Ruy Lopez Masters tournament held in Mérida, Spain, 4–13 April 2008, scoring 5½/7 to finish a half point ahead of Zhang Pengxiang. The tournament was an eight player round-robin with an average rating of 2616 (FIDE category 15).[9][10]

[edit] Hydra match

In June 2005, Adams took on an advanced chess super computer called Hydra in a six game match in London, England.

Hydra, housed in Abu Dhabi, at the time of the match consisted of 64 PCs each running 3.06 GHz Intel Xeon processors. Its designers said that it could, under optimal conditions, analyse up to 200 million positions a second, and, in the endgame, calculate up to 40 moves ahead.[11]

Adams lost the match, drawing only the second game. The final score was Hydra 5½, Adams ½.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Adams, Michael (ENG) FIDE Top Chess Player
  2. ^ World Chess Championship 1999 FIDE Knockout Matches, Mark Weeks' Chess Pages
  3. ^ World Chess Championship 2000 FIDE Knockout Matches, Mark Weeks' Chess Pages
  4. ^ World Chess Championship 2001-02 FIDE Knockout Matches, Mark Weeks' Chess Pages
  5. ^ Giddins, Steve (21 August 2007), “Michael Adams wins the Staunton Memorial”, ChessBase News, <http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4063>. Retrieved on 21 August 2007 
  6. ^ a b “Top-class chess returns to England”, Chessbase News, 21 July 2007, <http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4000>. Retrieved on 21 August 2007 
  7. ^ Giddins, Steve (13 August 2007), “Top Dutch and British GMs lead in Staunton Memorial”, Chessbase News, <http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4045>. Retrieved on 2007-13-03 
  8. ^ Giddings, Steve (10 September 2007), “China beats the UK by 28-20 points”, Chessbase News, <http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4104>. Retrieved on 26 September 2007 
  9. ^ “Michael Adams wins Second Ruy López International in Mérida”, ChessBase News, 13 April 2008, <http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4566>. Retrieved on 14 April 2008 
  10. ^ Crowther, Mark (14 March 2008), THE WEEK IN CHESS 701, London Chess Center, <http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic701.html>. Retrieved on 14 April 2008 
  11. ^ ZD Online News Article retrieved 26th September 2007

[edit] External links