Sharjah GP 4-5: Adams bounced back to beat Jon Ludvig Hammer

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov joined Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Sharjah Grand Prix lead by beating Mickey Adams in Round 4 on a day when Nakamura and MVL set the tone by drawing their top board encounter in 18 moves. The only other decisive action was an attacking win for Li Chao over Tomashevsky that Pepe Cuenca has analysed for us. Pepe got to cover a very different game in Round 5, when Adams bounced back to beat Jon Ludvig Hammer in one of his trademark positional masterclasses.

In the other game Mickey Adams showed the skill and resilience that have kept him near the top at the age of 45. His understated description of his win over Jon Ludvig Hammer as “quite nice” is enough to know it’s something special! Pepe Cuenca also took an in-depth look at that game: