Adams Michael (17.11.1971)
English Grandmaster (1989). Since the Autumn of 2006 Michael Adams has been writing a chess column in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.
At the age of 17, he won the 1989 British Championship and became a Grandmaster winning, in the same year, the Iclicki’s Masters in London. He learnt chess at six and quickly became famous by winning all kinds of Junior tournaments. His best achievement was a simul victory against the World Candidate Garry Kasparov in 1984.
At 16, when he finished school, he became a member of the French club Clichy. He was awarded the title of Master by FIDE in 1987. He showed good results at London, Lloyd Bank (110 players in Swiss) and Natwest Young Masters where he shared 1st place in August 1988. In October 1988, he was equal first at Bayswater. He became even more successful, winning the strongest tournaments at Preston (+4=5) and Park Hall International in 1989. For the first time, he participated, as a member of the English team, at the 1990 Novi Sad Olympiad and scored +2=4-2.
At Groningen in 1990 he shared the 1st place with Khalifman and Piket and in 1991 at Wijk aan Zee; the same year he won at Blackpool and qualified for the Interzonal finishing equal second with Alexander Chernin, Alexander Khalifman and Curt Hansen after John Nunn.
Other best results: winner or shared first at Terrassa in 1991, for the first great international success; 1992 at Brussels (rapid play) and Tilburg beating Boris Gelfand in the final match; in 1993 at Dublin (zonal), Groningen and Burgas; in 1994 Amsterdam-Donner and Garmisch in 1995 at Dos Hermanas, Iscia and London PCA INTEL; 1996 at Cambridge, New York CITS and Kilkenny; 1997 at Kilkenny and British Championship; 1998 at Dortmund. He came second at the 1993 Interzonal but lost to B. Gelfand in the 1st round of the Candidates. He did better with the PCA’s cycle losing in the semi to Vishy Anand. Winner at Dos Hermanas in 1999. In 1997, 1999 and 2000 he was the unlucky semi-finalist or finalist in the 2004 World Championship losing each match with the smallest of margins. He also won Bordeaux Rapid and Frankfurt Classic in 2000, Mainz-Siemens 2001, Staunton Memorial (ENG) in 2007 and 2008, Ruy Lopez International at Mérida in 2008, Gibraltar Open 2010, the British Championship 2010, the World Open (together with Gata Kamsky) with the Los Angeles Open in 2011, his fourth British Championship title the same year and at the European Team Championship, was awarded the gold medal for his performance on board one. In 2013 Adams scored possibly the best result of his career, with a rating performance of 2925 he won the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting. The following year with the English team at 41st Olympiad he was awarded an individual Silver medal for the second best performance at Board 1 and was a member of the team of SOCAR which won the European Club Cup. Finally in 2016, he won his 5th title of British Champion.
Adams played several matches. In 1997 at Santiago he won a match with Morovic 4½- 1½ and J. Rowson in 1998 at London 5-1. In 1994 he drew with S. Agdestein 2-2 at Oslo and in 1999 with Yasser Seirawan (4½-4½). The following year, he beat Y. Seirawan 5-3 in Bermuda. In 2001 he drew with V. Tkachiev 3-3 and in 2004, he drew with P. Leko 4-4.
Adams is a fast player with a solid nervous system. His style of play reminds one of Karpov in the early 70s. In 2001, he became the top-ranked player on the FIDE Rapid list.
Peak rating: 2761 in 2000. In 2000 he was the 4th best world ranked player.
He was voted BCF’s Player of the Year in 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2013.
