GM Matthew Sadler speaks ......

As mentioned in the let blogpost, there is this fascinating interview with English grandmaster Matthew Sadler (now living in the Netherlands) in Chessvibes, here. His story is re-told int he interview but in brief, it is about a talented young English GM who managed to get into the top 20 in chess and then decided to give up chess and "retired". Then lo and behold, last year there was a comeback of sorts beginning with a small Dutch rapid tournament followed by two long play tournaments wins. after the first, this got him an invite into the Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group C at Wijk san Zee. But it seems if he started his comeback earlier and with the two wins, he would have been invited for the Group B. Be that as it may, he is first seed in Group C. However, I really liked his attitude revealed in the interview: Here are excerpts: On why he stop being a professional chess player:

That's a very good question. I'd been wondering about it for a while; what was I'm going to do with things, how far would I go, et cetera. Basically it wasn't clear to me that I could really get higher than a top 20 player and in that case I wonder whether it was really worth carrying on another five or ten years. You'd have some good results, and maybe a few extra things that you could be really proud of, but at the end of the day nothing has really changed, and then it's time to start going downwards slowly. I sort of decided that I'd sort of had my fun basically. I had a great time as a professional but if I was ever going to switch to something else then now was the time. That was basically it. It was a real combination of all sorts of things, but that feeling of having had my fun and really wanting to try something else, completely different from scratch, I found it really attractive.
[......]
At that specific time I had a Dutch girlfriend so of course that was just meant to be. I applied for lots of jobs and pretty much took the most exciting thing that came along. I was really keen to do something that was completely outside chess, something that wasn't relying on me being a chess player or anything but just completely from scratch.

Why? Did you somehow want to really forget about chess, or did you feel you wanted to prove that you were capable of something else too?

No, just the feeling that there was a life outside chess as well. That there was lots of other things to do basically. What I really did not want, to be honest, was to be 35 and on my way down and not see a way out from chess. With the amount of energy I put into chess and the amount of work that I put in I couldn't really see myself like Kortchnoi for example, carrying on until he's 80, or until he's 100, I just couldn't see that happening. I really thought: if that was something that worried me then I should do something probably sooner rather than later. When you're 24, 25 you can start from the bottom and work your way up again, it's no problem. If you try that when you're 35 that's a lot more difficult I think.

Was it a good decision?

I'm so glad that I did it, to be honest. It was a great adventure, you know, moving to Holland, learning Dutch, starting off in something about which I had pretty much no idea and building up something from scratch again. It was great, it's been really nice.

And here is a very apposite observation about chess and life in general (in response to his decision to quit chess):

For me of course the whole decision had been brewing for a very long time actually. I think it was quite a shock actually for British chess. But within a couple of weeks people just forget and move on basically. There are so many good players you know. I still played for a couple of years in the Bundesliga and it it's weird. You notice how quickly you become unimportant actually, you're not studying theory so you're not playing any novelties anymore. People aren't really looking at your games because they're not really that interesting. It's amazing, professional chess moves on so quickly. You're forgotten very quickly.[emphasis added]

Continue reading about his employment journey after chess. It is quite inspiring especially when e left school at 16 to pursue chess ......

On his performance with the English team:

You scored statistically better in team events? [......] How do you explain this for your own situation?

I don't know, I think it just inspired me. In a tough position you just fight that little bit harder because you can see how important it is for the team. The importance for the team means more to you than just the importance of the game for yourself. Some people got a bit nervous I think, playing for the team, the played a bit like shadows of themselves and some other players just got inspired and were able to play freely and aggressively and get good results.