There are many things in life that get better as they grow older:⠀

• French Wine⠀
• Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon⠀
• Madonna⠀

However, none of them have gotten as good as they grew older as Grandmaster and prolific chess author, Matthew Sadler.

Being a genius and a remarkable human being seems to be a thing for British Grandmasters. You might remember we mentioned John Nunn – the youngest Oxford Graduate in like 100 years and a three-time World Champion In Problem Solving – a couple of weeks ago.

Sadler’s biography is no less impressive. In the 90s, he followed a „common“ path – he became a grandmaster before the age of 20, he won two British Championships in 1995 and 1997 (at the ages of 21 and 23, respectively) and he wrote four chess books in the 1997-2000 period.

In the 90s, Sadler followed a „common“ path – he became a grandmaster before the age of 20, he won two British Championships in 1995 and 1997 (at the ages of 21 and 23, respectively) and he wrote four chess books in the 1997-2000 period.⠀

But then, he gave up chess completely and start a new career from scratch in an IT company in the Netherlands. In an episode of a Perpetual Chess Podcast, he said he literally started from the bottom. ⠀

For a long time, he did keep away from chess. But in 2007 he stumbled randomly upon a random tournament, decided to give it a try and…. won the thing with a perfect 7/7 ahead of several grandmasters, including Jan Timman. ⠀

Even though he did maintain his full-time job and considers chess only as a „hobby“, he has been playing successfully ever since. In 10 years, he managed to increase his rating from 2617 to 2688 and is currently among top 50 players in the world!

(Not bad for a „hobbyist“)⠀

Apart from playing, he also got back to his other love – book writing. Since his „unretirement“ he wrote three books: Study Chess With Matthew Sadler (2012), Chess For Life (2016) and Game Changer (2019). The last one, in particular, has garnered a lot of attention, since the main topic is the revolutionary self-learning chess engine developed by Google Deepmind: Alpha Zero. ⠀

Not only that: Matthew Sadler is a very prolific chess book reviewer. He has been writing a regular column for New In Chess Magazine in which he reviews several books on a monthly basis. I heard somewhere he reads them all while traveling to work via train…⠀

In any case, he is one of those people who has achieved so much and shows no signs of stopping. ⠀

And today he celebrates his 45th birthday!⠀

(If you like posts as these, check our complete list of Chess Birthdays )