Michael Adams

Michael Adams (born 17 November 1971) is an English chess grandmaster and is an eight-time British Chess Champion. His highest ranking is world No. 4, achieved several times from October 2000 to October 2002. His peak Elo rating is 2761, the highest achieved by an English chess player. He has achieved good results in World Chess Championship tournaments. Several times a World Championship Candidate, he reached the semifinals in 1997, 1999 and 2000. He reached the final at the 2004 FIDE Championship, narrowly losing out to Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the tie-break games. Early career Adams was born on 17 November 1971 in Truro, Cornwall, UK. By 1980, his chess talent had been recognised by the British Chess Federation, and he received high-level coaching from former European Junior Champion Shaun Taulbut and coaching from local chess champion Michael Prettejohn. In 1981, aged nine, Adams entered the Cornwall (County) Under-9 Championship and won it. He won the Under-13, Under-15 and Under-18 Championships at the same event. The last two contests clashed for one day, and he had to play them simultaneously, commuting cautiously between different rooms, some thirty metres apart. In 1987, he took the silver medal at the World Under-16 Championship, held in Innsbruck, behind the Icelandic player Hannes Stefánsson. Later that year, at the age of fifteen, he became the world's youngest International Master (IM).