The Week in Chess

Michael Adams scored one of the best results of his career in winning the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2013. Adams faced Vladimir Kramnik who could have won the event with a win with black. The game was an unusual variation of the c3 Sicilian especially after 7.Qb3. Adams' 9.a5 either forced a draw or an inferior position on Kramnik who chose to take a draw by repetition a game seen in its entirety in Christian Mann vs Jiri Stocek Bundesliga 2 1997.

Adams' rating is set to rise to 2761 (gaining 21 points) which is his highest rating ever. Adams gained a huge amount of rating points in the 4th London Chess Classic in 2012 and further points in the Alekhine Memorial in May so the result has hardly come out of the blue. Adams and Kramnik will play in the FIDE World Cup in Tromso starting next week where if they perform to seeding they will meet in Round 4.

Adams, who remained the only undefeated participant in the field of ten, described his victory as the greatest tournament success of his career. "I did not expect such a result. That everything went so well makes me very happy."

Vladimir Kramnik also gained 10 points in the event and scored heavily with offbeat and risky openings with only one loss (to Dmitry Andreikin in Round 7). Kramnik probably didn't entertain very high hopes of beating Adams with black. "Michael Adams has fully deserved the win. He is a very strong player. Not for nothing over the past two decades has he been one of the best grandmasters in the world."

Elo favourite Fabiano Caruana mitigated a bad result by eventually outlasting Daniel Fridman in the final round to win a very difficult game where he had a knight for three pawns but 4/9 was far beneath expectations for him.

Wang Hao too had to work very hard in the final round to beat Georg Meier who otherwise would have had a fine event.

Arkadij Naiditsch reached 50% and a tie for 3rd with a nice with against Igor Khenkin in a Caro Kann.

Peter Leko also finished in joint 3rd easily holding Dmitry Andreikin in a Nimzo-Indian that was pretty much drawn before they left theory. Leko struggled with time pressure which led to him missing a good number of chances to add to his 50% score but not enough to breach the gap to Kramnik and Adams.

Final Round 9 Standings: Adams 7pts, Kramnik 6.5pts, Leko, Naiditsch 4.5pts, Andreikin, Meier, Caruana, Wang Hao 4pts, Khenkin 3.5pts, Fridman 3pts.