Matthew David Sadler (born 15 May 1974) is an English

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

grandmaster, chess writer and two-time British Chess Champion. He is the No. 2 ranked English player

Personal life

Sadler has a French mother, speaks French perfectly and is also qualified to play in closed French events. He was tipped to reach the heights scaled by other leading English players as Michael Adams and

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the ...

but made the decision to cease playing professionally in his mid 20s, opting for an IT career in the Netherlands.

Chess career

Sadler won the British Championship in 1995 at the age of 21 and again in 1997 (jointly with Michael Adams). 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 Chess Championship The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...

in Pula in 1997. His was the best individual score of the five-man English team and so contributed significantly to England's first (and to date only) gold medal in a major competition. 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 The English Chess Federation (ECF) is the governing chess organisation in England. It is affiliated to FIDE. The ECF was formed in 2004 as one of the more localised successors to the British Chess Federation (BCF), an organisation founded in 1904. ...

's book of the year award.BCF Book of the Year award-2000
British Chess Federation Latterly a resident of

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...

, Sadler returned to chess in 2010 to play in a rapidplay tournament held in nearby

Wageningen Wageningen () is a municipality and a historic city in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specialises in life sciences. The municipality had a population of in , of which many ...

. He won the event with a perfect score of 7/7, finishing ahead of grandmasters

Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...

Friso Nijboer Friso Nijboer (born May 26, 1965) is a Dutch chess player. He achieved the title of Grandmaster in 1996. Nijboer won the Vlissingen Chess Tournament in 2002 and 2005, and won the 3rd Nancy Chess Festival in 2005. He participated in six Chess O ...

and

Daniel Fridman Daniel Fridman ( lv, Daniels Fridmans; born February 15, 1976) is a Latvian-German chess player. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2001, he was Latvian champion in 1996 and German champion in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Early chess caree ...

. In August 2011, Sadler continued his resurgence by winning the XIII Open Internacional D'Escacs de Sants, scoring 8½/10, ahead of several grandmasters including Jan Smeets. Right thereafter, in October 2011, he went on to compete in the Oslo Chess International; participants included ten other grandmasters, among them

Sergei Tiviakov Sergei Tiviakov (russian: Серге́й Тивяков; born 14 February 1973) is a Russian–Dutch chess grandmaster. He is a three-time Dutch Champion and was European Champion in 2008. Chess career Tiviakov won the World Under-18 Champion ...

Jon Ludvig Hammer Jon Ludvig Nilssen Hammer (born 2 June 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster and three-time Norwegian Chess Champion. He was the main second for Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2013. Chess career At the 38th Chess Olympiad i ...

and Sergey Volkov, all being 2600+ rated. Sadler won convincingly, with 8/9 points and a

performance rating The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of r ...

of 2849. Going into 2012, the gain in rating points elevated him to fourth rank amongst active English players and also lifted him back into the World Top 100. In a January 2012 interview, Sadler stated that chess was now primarily a "hobby" for him.Chessvibes Interview
"Matthew Sadler, Tata GM group C: "It's a hobby!" "
(2012). While relishing his return to tournament play, Sadler noted that he was now an amateur, and would not be coming back as a professional. He contrasts his present lighthearted attitude with his demeanor during his time as a professional, when he was "working ten hours a day and incredibly intensively".

Bibliography

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References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sadler, Matthew 1974 births Living people Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors English chess players English non-fiction writers British chess writers English male non-fiction writers