Michael Adams

Michael Adams

You have all of these amazing qualities as a chess player, but what do you

consider to be your greatest strength?

Like I said before, 1 think that I'm a pretty practical player and I'm pretty reasonable

in all aspects. I don't have too many obvious weaknesses. I think I'm sort of an all‑

round player and that's perhaps my greatest strength.

At the other end of the spectrum, what was your worst blunder and what

Ad you learn from it?I

 don't know if I've got one particular blunder, but I think that in general I've learnt

from the mistakes that I've made over a period of time. Particularly in tactical posi‑

ts, where my concentration levels weren't high enough. I know now the types of

positions that I tend to make errors in, particularly calculation, heavy positions; I

dicdicate more time to these positions and decisions and check things more care‑

flay There's not one particular blunder, but a number of games and a pattern that I

Nks recurring.

But I suppose that one of my worst blunders. was playing for England in the

Olympiad in Novi Sad (1990), where I dropped .a rook against Kozul. He played for

the `home' team so I was in front of about three or four thousand spectators, which

Ins rather tough. Then 1 was benched for the rest of the competition. It was a little

bit brutal but I was probably worse anyway, so it wasn't that bad.

an Michael and his father Bill's book, Chess in the Fast Lane, Bill recalls the consequence

se this loss.- Michael's disappointment sent him look for  revenge against Kozel. This can be a

any dangerous approach, although on this occasion it worked well and Michael registered three

sou against ibis opponent in the next twelve months, although be would skid* have swapped any

of them with the Olympiad result.

Hew important are tournament conditions to your play?

Obviously that's got to be a factor. I'm not really bothered about playing conditions

in the tournament hall, that really doesn't bother me, bad light, all this kind of thing.

Maybe if it's really hot I don't like it too much, but somehow things like lighting

sewer really bothered me. But the hotel is really important. If you're going to be

staying somewhere for a couple of weeks, if you've got a bad hotel room, that's go‑

 to be a problem. If it's very noisy, or very hot, if in general there arc problems

lath the hotel, that can be annoying. Normally the hotels that I stay in are pretty

seasonable. You don't really need deluxe conditions, just something fairly normal,

and usually the organisers do their best.

 is your most entertaining chess story?

nil talk about the time when England won the gold medals in Pula in the European

Tarn Championships 1997, which was a very special moment in my career, anyway.

Et an started off slightly disastrously, when we headed off to Heathrow airport and,

unfortunately, the British Chess Federation (BCF) had booked us tickets on a flight

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