Matthew Sadler (chess player)

This article is about the British chess player. For the English footballer, see Mat Sadler.

Matthew Sadler, 1999 at Porz

Matthew Sadler (born 15 May 1974, in England) is an International Grandmaster (1993) of chess, and a chess writer.

Sadler won the British Championship in 1995 at the age of 21 and again in 1997 (jointly with Michael Adams).^[1] He represented England in the 1996 Chess Olympiad, scoring 10½/13 and winning a gold medal for the best score on board four (England finished fourth), and also played in 1998 scoring 7½/12. He made 7/9 on board four for England at the European Team Championship in Pula in 1997;^[2] this was the best individual score by the five-man English team and helped it win the gold medal in a major senior event for the first (and to date only) time in English chess history. He was widely tipped to reach the heights scaled by such leading players as Michael Adams and Nigel Short but has since taken the decision to cease playing professionally, opting for a career in IT in Holland. For several years, he was the book reviewer for New in Chess magazine and also wrote books and articles for other chess magazines. In 2000, his book Queen's Gambit Declined (published by Everyman) was awarded the British Chess Federation's book of the year award.^[3] Sadler has a French mother, speaks French perfectly and is also qualified to play in closed French events.

Nowadays a resident of Amersfoort in the Netherlands, Sadler returned to chess in 2010 to play in a rapidplay tournament held in nearby Wageningen. He won the event with a maximum score of 7/7, finishing ahead of strong grandmasters Jan Timman, Friso Nijboer and Daniel Fridman. In August 2011 Sadler continued the strong play by winning the XIII Open Internacional D'Escacs de Sants scoring 8½/10 ahead of several strong grandmasters counting Jan Smeets. Right thereafter in October 2011 Sadler went on to win the Oslo Chess International 2011 in front of ten other grandmasters, amongst them Sergei Tiviakov, Jon Ludvig Hammer and Sergey Volkov all being 2600+ players. Sadler won with the very strong 8/9 points and a performance rating of 2849. The gain in rating points is expected to bring Sadler back to the fourth rank amongst the English players, only close behind Luke McShane, Nigel Short and Michael Adams.

References

1. ^ List of British chess champions
2. ^ 11th European Chess Team Championship: Pula 1997, Individual statistics Olimpbase
3. ^ BCF Book of the Year award-2000 British Chess Federation

External links

• FIDE rating card for Matthew Sadler (chess player)
• Matthew Sadler (chess player) player profile at ChessGames.com
• Biography of Matthew Sadler Everyman Chess

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Name	Sadler, Matthew
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Date of birth	15 May 1974
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