Michael Adams Wins 41st Sparkassen Chess Meeting

On Sunday Michael Adams needed just about two hours to draw his last game and achieve one of his career's best results. In the final round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting, the 41-year-old English grandmaster split the point with Vladimir Kramnik after just 14 moves to finish clear first with 7 points out of 9 games. This way his opponent came second with 6.5 points. In the last round Fabiano Caruana, Arkadij Naiditsch and Wang Hao won their games against Daniel Fridman, Igor Khenkin and Georg Meier respectively. 

The first grandmaster tournament in Dortmund was held in 1973 and won by Finnish grandmaster Heikki Westerinen. At the time, a one year old Mickey Adams was crawling in diapers, and had no idea about chess yet. Now, four decades later, Adams (41) won the 41st edition convincingly. Like Boris Gelfand, who won the Tal Memorial in Moscow last month, Adams has been among the top players for two decades without having won too many top events. Today's victory is among his best achievements.

The last round saw the dream pairing Adams-Kramnik, but the game itself was rather disappointing, except for the white player of course. It was over in about two hours and only 14 moves, as there was no good way for Kramnik to avoid a move repetition.

Kramnik shared some nice words about his last-round opponent: "Adams' win was fully deserved. He's a very strong player. It's not for nothing that for the past two decades he's been among the best players in the world."

Adams: "I didn't expect such a result. In chess one cannot say in advance how things will go. I prepared every game thoroughly and just wanted to do my best. Besides, my opponents were nice to me. Of course I'm happy that everything worked out so well."

Arkadij Naiditsch and Peter Leko came shared third, with a fifty per cent score. The German grandmaster finished his tournament with a very convincing win over his compatriot Igor Khenkin, who happens to have a lot of experience in this specific variation of the Caro-Kann. Naiditsch, however, has the reputation of a good theoretician, and he showed it with his strong novelty 10.b4.

Wang Hao celebrated his 24th birthday with a nice win over Georg Meier. The start was very quiet but check out the phase from move 45 onwards, when the white bishops became monsters.

Fabiano Caruana played a bad tournament where he lost 16 rating points, but at least he could finish with a win. In the last round he beat Daniel Fridman in a long and tough French game.

Dortmund 2013 | Pairings & results

Dortmund 2013 | Final standings

#	Player	Rating	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	Points	SB
1	Adams,M	2740		½	½	1	1	½	1	1	1	½	7.0/9
2	Kramnik,V	2784	½		1	½	0	1	1	1	½	1	6.5/9
3	Leko,P	2737	½	0		1	½	½	½	½	½	½	4.5/9	19.25
4	Naiditsch,A	2710	0	½	0		1	0	½	1	1	½	4.5/9	18.25
5	Andreikin,D	2727	0	1	½	0		½	0	½	1	½	4.0/9	17.75
6	Meier,G	2610	½	0	½	1	½		½	0	½	½	4.0/9	17.50
7	Caruana,F	2796	0	0	½	½	1	½		0	½	1	4.0/9	15.25
8	Wang Hao	2752	0	0	½	0	½	1	1		0	1	4.0/9	15.25
9	Khenkin,I	2605	0	½	½	0	0	½	½	1		½	3.5/9
10	Fridman,D	2629	½	0	½	½	½	½	0	0	½		3.0/9

Photos courtesy of the official website; games via TWIC