We send best wishes to IM Adam Taylor on his birthday.

Adam Christopher Taylor was born on Friday, January 23rd, 1998 in Colchester, Essex. Adam has a sister, Nathalie Leanne Taylor who also plays and studied History & Economics at The University of York. His mother Deborah was always supportive during his chess career.

He attended The Gilberd School, Colchester until 2014 and then Colchester Sixth Form College and currently resides in Colchester, Essex.

Adam’s first recorded rapidplay event was the Basildon Junior Congress resulting in a published grade of 34D and his first graded standard play event was the 2009 London Junior Under-12 Championships and his first published standard-play grading was 73E.

In that same year at Torquay Adam won the British Under-12 title sharing with Radha Jain.

Adam made his first 4NCL appearance in May 2012 for SC Stars followed by Anglian Avengers. In 2018 the lure of the big lights of Division One beckoned and Wood Green became Adam’s team now playing for Wood Green Monarchs in the Online 4NCL championship.

In 2017 Adam scored an impressive 6/9 (and =2nd) when he travelled to Greece to play in the Heraklion 1st Capablanca Memorial.

The Hastings Open in 2018 saw an excellent =7th with 6.5/10.

Adam’s IM title was ratified in June of 2019 in Baku and currently (January 2021) holds a FIDE standard play rating of 2347 and an ECF standard play rating of 2260A. His highest ECF standard play grading was 230A in July 2019. We expect this to be exceeded once OTB play resumes.

Battersea Chess Club celebrated Adams’s title in style with this article written by Leon Watson

Adam has played for Bury St. Edmunds and Manningtree and now Battersea in the London League and Wood Green in the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) and has made many appearances in the UKCC Terafinal.

Adam is known as Tayip99 on chess.com and as AdamTaylor2301 on LiChess.com and regularly streams on Twitch and other platforms.

On the 13th of September 2019 Adam became the sole director of MakingGrandmasters Limited which lists on its web site a number of leading young English players engaging in coaching such as Matthew Wadsworth, Ravi Haria and Daniel Fernandez to name but a few.

One of Adam’s more notable students is Guildford Chess Club member Jessica Mellor who, in 2018, won Gold in the Under-11 category of the European Schools Championship.

More recently Adam has taken a back seat from chess and has become a golf professional.

With the white pieces Adam favours a Reti/English set-up where c4 quickly follows a king side fianchetto. Here is a typical game of Adam’s with the white against a strong opponent :

[pgn]
[Event “Hastings Masters op 93rd”]
[Site “Hastings”]
[Date “2017.12.28”]
[Round “1”]
[White “Taylor, Adam C”]
[Black “Sengupta, Deep”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A11”]
[WhiteElo “2242”]
[BlackElo “2586”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “113”]
[EventDate “2017.12.28”]
[EventType “swiss”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 182 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2018.02.23”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2018.02.23”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,113,19,27,26,-27,-27,-10,18,10,9,17,14,30,26,1,-2,11,29,0,27,22,57,60,
161,161,161,74,81,89,88,143,136,155,133,155,131,132,152,158,156,85,92,99,115,
117,135,116,250,78,228,92,97,99,99,100,104,119,129,136,160,165,172,176,176,191,
206,180,221,163,183,203,210,203,207,207,220,220,237,247,237,263,252,267,286,
232,274,213,233,206,223,234,246,234,232,228,234,255,335,364,384,338,350,371,
376,404,436,428,472,481,508,512,517,531,528,539]} 1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2
Bg4 4. Ne5 Bf5 5. c4 c6 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. O-O (7. Nc3 {is more common.}) 7… e6
8. d3 Bd6 9. Qa4+ Nbd7 10. Bf4 Qe7 $2 $146 {presumably missing whites 11th
move. [#]} ({required is} 10… Bxe5 11. Bxe5 O-O 12. Bd6 Nb6 13. Qa3 Re8 14.
Nd2 Rc8 15. Rac1 Qd7 16. Be5 a6 17. Qb4 Qb5 18. Qxb5 axb5 19. b3 Nfd7 20. Bc7
Na8 21. Ba5 Rc6 $2 22. Rxc6 bxc6 23. b4 $18 Nab6 24. Rc1 Rc8 25. Nf3 Bg4 26.
Nd4 Na4 27. f3 Bh5 28. Kf1 h6 29. Rxc6 Rxc6 30. Nxc6 Nc3 31. Ke1 e5 32. Bh3 Nf6
33. Nxe5 Nxa2 34. Kd2 d4 35. Nc6 Nc3 36. Nxd4 Nfd5 37. Bd7 {Meier-Atefall,
Vastefas, 2017, 1-0.}) 11. e4 $1 dxe4 (11… Bg6 $2 12. Nxg6 hxg6 13. e5 $18 {
is the simple point.}) (11… Bxe5 12. Bxe5 Bg6 13. Bc3 $18) 12. dxe4 Bg4 13.
Nxd7 Qxd7 14. Qxd7+ Kxd7 15. Bxd6 Kxd6 16. h3 {A very unpleasant position for
the Indian GM.} Bh5 {Adam continues in fine style.} 17. f4 Ke7 18. g4 Nxg4 {
Hobson’s choice.} 19. hxg4 Bxg4 20. Bf3 Bxf3 21. Rxf3 Rhd8 22. Nc3 Rd2 23. Rf2
Rad8 24. Raf1 a6 25. Rxd2 Rxd2 26. Rf2 Rd3 27. Kf1 h5 28. Ke2 Rg3 29. e5 f5 30.
exf6+ gxf6 31. Rh2 Rg8 32. Ne4 Rh8 33. Kf3 h4 34. Rc2 f5 35. Ng5 Kd7 $6 (35…
Rd8) 36. Rd2+ Ke7 37. Re2 Rh6 38. Kg2 Kd7 39. Kh3 Ke7 40. Re3 Kd7 41. a4 b6 42.
Nf3 Kd6 43. Nxh4 Kc5 44. Kg3 Kb4 45. b3 a5 46. Nf3 Rg6+ 47. Ng5 Rg8 48. Kf3 Rd8
49. Nxe6 Rd7 50. Ke2 Ka3 51. Kf3 Kb2 52. Kg3 Kc2 53. Kh4 Rd6 54. Kg5 Kd2 55.
Re5 Kc3 56. Kxf5 Kxb3 57. Re4 {and Black resigned.} 1-0
[/pgn]

With the black pieces Adam essays the Berlin Defence and the Sicilian Najdorf as well as the Benko Gambit and Nimzo-Indian Defence.

[pgn]
[Event “Hastings Masters op 91st”]
[Site “Hastings”]
[Date “2016.01.03”]
[Round “7”]
[White “Helbig, Paul”]
[Black “Taylor, Adam C”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “C36”]
[WhiteElo “2122”]
[BlackElo “2282”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “68”]
[EventDate “2015.12.28”]
[EventType “swiss”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 170 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2016.02.25”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2016.02.25”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,68,37,25,8,-13,11,14,-16,14,7,-20,-8,-69,-68,-58,-54,-72,-87,-110,
-107,-165,-133,-115,-151,-149,-157,-134,-92,-111,-111,-150,-168,-179,-192,-176,
-176,-190,-195,-204,-191,-176,-171,-250,-259,-270,-248,-254,-248,-262,-254,
-323,-337,-352,-326,-358,-395,-862,-886,-886,-900,-900,-917,-917,-925,-933,
-938,-947,-417,-470,-449]} 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 exf4 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bc4
Nxd5 6. Bxd5 ({More common is} 6. O-O Be7 7. d4 O-O 8. Bxd5 Qxd5 9. Bxf4 c5 10.
Nc3 Qc4 11. Qe1 Bf6 12. Bd6 Bxd4+ 13. Kh1 Rd8 14. Ne4) 6… Qxd5 7. O-O (7. Nc3
Qd8 8. d4 Be7 9. Bxf4 O-O 10. O-O c6 11. Qd3 Be6 12. Rad1) 7… Nc6 (7… Be7
8. d4 O-O 9. Bxf4 c5 10. Nc3) 8. Nc3 Qf5 $17 {[#]} 9. Qe2+ $146 {An unhappy
choice but white is simply worse anyway.} (9. d4) 9… Be6 10. Qb5 {Another
strange decision} Qxb5 11. Nxb5 O-O-O 12. d3 a6 13. Nc3 Bc5+ 14. Kh1 Nb4 $1 15.
Ne4 Be3 16. Bxe3 fxe3 17. Ne1 Rhe8 18. a3 {[#] White has obtained precisely
nothing from the opening apart from being behind in development.} Nc6 19. Ng5
f6 (19… Bd5) 20. Nxe6 Rxe6 21. Rf4 g5 22. Rc4 f5 23. Rc5 Rf8 24. g4 Re5 (
24… fxg4 $1 25. Rc4 h5 26. Ng2 e2 27. Kg1 Ne5 $19) 25. Rc4 fxg4 26. Rxg4 Rf1+
27. Kg2 Ref5 28. h4 R5f2+ (28… h5 $1) 29. Kg3 Rg1+ 30. Kh3 Rh1+ 31. Kg3 gxh4+
32. Rxh4 Rg1+ 33. Kh3 Re2 (33… Ne7) 34. Rg4 Rh1+ {and white gave up the
unequal struggle.} 0-1
[/pgn]