Former British Champion and Olympiad gold medalist Matthew Sadler won the 13th Sants Open in Barcelona on Sunday with a score of 8.5/10. Playing his first long Swiss event in more than a decade, the English grandmaster defeated top seed Jan Smeets in the final round to finish half a point ahead of Eduardo Iturrizaga, Aramis Alvarez Pedraza, Marc Narciso Dublan and Hector Delgado Ramos.

Last year we reported on Sadler's victory in his first classical chess tournament since 1999: the Haarlem Weekender in July 2010. This year due to a busy schedule we didn't manage to cover the same event, but today's report is a good opportunity to mention that Sadler repeated his success. He won the tournament again, but this time together with Dutch GM Erik van den Doel.

Sadler (l.) in July, winning in Haarlem again, shared with Van den Doel (r.)

These two weekenders were the only classical chess tournaments in which Sadler participated since he retired from tournament chess in 1999 to start a professional IT career in The Netherlands. However, suddenly he also appeared on the participants list of one of the many summer opens - yes, a long, one-game-per-day Swiss! Because he only played Bundesliga and Dutch league games for more than a decade, naturally we were as curious as many other chess fans to see how he would do in Barca...

Sants

The 13th Sants Open took place August 19-28 in the Auditorium of the Civic Centre in the Sants neighbourhood in south Barcelona, Spain. Sants used to be an industrial town on the plain bordering Barcelona, known as Santa Maria de Sants; nowadays it belongs to the district of Sants-Montjuïc.

The tournament was a 10-round Swiss with a record 659 participants. They were divided over two groups, the strongest being for players rated 2000 and higher. The top group had 29 GMs and 45 IMs fighting for a 2,500 Euro first prize. The FIDE rate of play was applied: 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 1.

Sadler in action in Sants, Barcelona

Eduardo Iturrizaga started with five out of five, and so did Spanish FM Angel Arribas Lopez, who had top seeded Dutch GM Jan Smeets as one of his scalps! The two drew in round 6 which allowed Matthew Sadler and Abhijit Kunte of India to catch them. In round 7 Sadler defeated Arribas Lopez with Black to grab sole first place, with three rounds to go.

The next day, Iturrizaga returned to shared first place with Sadler beating Georgian GM Levan Aroshidze. In the meantime Dutch GM Jan Smeets had fought himself back to the top with victories in rounds 6, 7, 8 and 9. With one round to go, Smeets was on 7.5 points, the same as Iturrizaga and Sadler. In the decisive last round, Sadler beat Smeets in a brilliant game to clinch first prize, as Iturrizaga drew with Black against Narciso Dublan.

Sadler-Smeets
Sants, 2011
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 Bb7 9. O-O a6 10. e4 c5 11. d5 Qc7 12. dxe6 fxe6 13. Bc2 c4 14. Ne2 Nxe4 15. Ned4 e5 16. Ne6 Qb6 17. Bxe4 Bxe4 18. Nfg5 Bg6 19. a4 b4 20. Qg4 Qc6 21. f4 Bd3

22. Be3! Nf6
22... Bxf1 23. Rxf1 and Black's light squares are too weak.
23. Nc7+!

23... Ke7?!
The best chance was 23... Qxc7 24. Qe6+ Be7 and now White can take the draw with 25. Qf7+ Kd7 26. Qe6+ Ke8 27. Qf7+ but he should probably play on with 25. fxe5 Rf8 26. exf6 gxf6 27. Qd5 Rc8 (27... Rd8 28. Ne6!) 28. Ne6 Qd6 29. Qh5+ Bg6 30. Qh3 Rg8 31. Rae1.
24. Qh3 e4
24... Qxc7 25. Qe6+ Kd8 26. Nf7+
25. Nxa8 h6

26. Nc7! and White won.

Sadler continues a successful... comeback?

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