Michael Adams doesn’t produce many fireworks-first brilliancies — his art is the slow strangle, the game that looks quiet until the opponent quietly runs out of air. But when the position calls for a knockout, “The Spider” can throw a punch too. Here are a few of his most celebrated games and campaigns, told in plain English so you can enjoy the story even if you don’t want to move the pieces yourself.
Adams vs. Carlsen, Olympiad 2010 — the Spider bites the world No. 1
This is the Adams game most casual fans know, and for good reason. At the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, England faced Norway, which meant Adams sat down with the White pieces against Magnus Carlsen — at that moment the world’s No. 1-rated player. The game was played on 27 September 2010.
Carlsen, in trademark fashion, tried to take Adams out of theory with a deliberately offbeat, provocative opening setup (an old idea associated with Gerard Welling and Tony Miles, with Black’s knight taking a strange tour to the edge of the board and back). Against most players the surprise might have worked. Against Adams it backfired: he calmly built a superior position, kept improving, and then — unusually for him — finished with a sacrificial attack, breaking through for a clean and convincing 1–0.
Beating the reigning world No. 1 with the initiative, on a big team stage, is the kind of result that makes a career highlight reel. It also flipped the script on Adams’s reputation: the patient positional master showing he could hunt a king when the game demanded it. The game is affectionately remembered under the headline “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.”
Adams vs. Tiviakov, PCA Candidates 1994 — his own favorite
Ask Adams himself for his most memorable game, and he doesn’t pick the Carlsen win. He points back to the decisive tie-break game of his Candidates match against Sergei Tiviakov, played at the 1994 PCA Candidates in New York.
The context is what made it special. It was, in Adams’s words, “a rewarding conclusion to a long, tough, tense match, where the preceding battles raised the stakes.” The classical games had been a grind, the earlier tie-breaks had all been drawn, and everything came down to one final, decisive game — which Adams won to advance. Decades later he still names it as the game he’s fondest of, precisely because of the pressure it was played under. It’s a reminder that for a professional, the games that mean the most aren’t always the prettiest — they’re the ones you had to win when it mattered most.
The 2004 World Championship run — one match from the top
Not every masterpiece is a single game. Adams’s greatest campaign came at the 2004 FIDE World Championship in Tripoli, a giant knockout event where a slip in any round sends you home. Adams didn’t slip. He won match after match — beating strong grandmasters including Vladimir Akopian, Teimour Radjabov, and a young Hikaru Nakamura — to reach the final.
There, against Rustam Kasimdzhanov, he came agonizingly close. The six classical games finished level at 3–3, sending the title to a rapid-chess tie-break — and it was Kasimdzhanov who edged it, with Adams losing the match 3½–4½. It’s the closest an English player has come to the world crown in the modern era. He never got another shot that good, which is exactly why chess fans still talk about “what if.” The run showed the full Adams package: nerveless match play, deep opening preparation, and the endurance to grind out win after win under knockout pressure.
Dos Hermanas 1999 — beating the whole elite at once
For a taste of Adams at his tournament best, look at Dos Hermanas 1999. In one of the strongest events of the year, Adams finished first, ahead of a genuinely jaw-dropping field that included Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, Boris Gelfand, Peter Svidler, Viktor Korchnoi and Judit Polgar. Winning clear first in company like that — future world champions and legends alike — is one of the purest statements of how good Adams was at his peak. He would top it results-wise only at Dortmund 2013, where a performance rating around 2925 made it arguably the finest tournament of his life.
Why these games matter
Put together, these results capture the whole Adams experience: the patient technician who squeezes elite opponents dry, the clutch competitor who wins the games that decide matches, and — when he needs to — the attacker who can take down the world No. 1 with a sacrifice. Not bad for a player nicknamed after a spider.
Want to understand how he does it? Read about Michael Adams’s playing style, explore the openings he uses, or head back to the main Michael Adams profile.
FAQ
What is Michael Adams’s most famous game? For the wider public, his 2010 Olympiad win over world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, finished with a sacrificial attack. Adams himself names the decisive tie-break game of his 1994 Candidates match against Sergei Tiviakov as his most memorable.
Did Michael Adams beat Magnus Carlsen? Yes. At the 2010 Chess Olympiad, playing White, Adams beat Carlsen while Carlsen was the world’s top-rated player.
How close did Adams come to being World Champion? Very close. At the 2004 FIDE World Championship he reached the final and tied the classical games 3–3 with Rustam Kasimdzhanov, before losing the rapid tie-break 3½–4½.
Keep exploring
More Adams: his playing style · his openings · his rating history · fun facts & records · or the full Michael Adams profile.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, the ChessBase Olympiad report, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.