ADAMS “HAMMERS” HAMMER, GRISCHUK AND JAKOVENKO ALSO WIN
For the third time in the last couple of days, my favourite GM Michael Adams will be the star of the Sharjah Grand Prix round report.
Because after analyzing his yesterday’s loss against Shakriyah Mamedyarov, today he managed to recover with a grandiose technical win against the second of the World Champion, Jon Ludvig Hammer.
In a popular line of the Italian opening, Hammer played the uncommon 8… Kh8, which had some logic behind it, but turned out to be not the best against a continuation 10 Na3!? chosen by Adams.
In the resulting middlegame White had the slight advantage, which transformed in slightly bigger advantage when everything apart from rooks and one minor piece was exchanged. Black faced a hard (if possible) defensive task, but Adams convincingly exploited his chances and opponent’s certainty and went on to score an important win.
Apart from Adams, both Grischuk and Jakovenko scored their first wins, against out-of-form Eljanov and Riazantsev.
Particularly bizzare was Jakovenko’s game:
In the remainder of the post, the detailed analysis of the Adams – Hammer game is given.