In more recent times, he won the fifth Howard Staunton Memorial Tournament in August 2007, achieving a score of 8½/11 (six wins, five draws), picking up the top purse of £1000. Adams, the highest seeded player in the tournament by 45 Elo points, finished a full point ahead of Dutch Grand Masters Ivan Sokolov and Loek van Wely. The tournament, one of a series held in London, commemorated the life of the nineteenth century English chess master Howard Staunton. Prior to the start of the tournament, on 4 August, Adams married his longtime girlfriend, the actress Tara MacGowran, at a ceremony in Taunton, close to where they live. In September 2007, Adams took part in a match between United Kingdom and China, held in Liverpool, England. Playing alongside Adams was former World Championship challenger GM Nigel Short. This chess event was the first time in almost 15 years that the two GMs had played chess together on British soil. Overall, he scored 3½/6, conceding one loss to GM Zhang Pengxiang (ELO 2649, at time of match) in round four. The UK team lost the match to China, 20–28, who had also defeated a Russian chess team a few weeks before. Adams won the 2nd Ruy Lopez Masters tournament held in Mérida, Spain, 4–13 April 2008, scoring 5½/7 to finish a half point ahead of Zhang Pengxiang. The tournament was an eight-player round-robin with an average rating of 2616 (FIDE category 15). In August 2008, there was a second successive victory in the Staunton Memorial. Adams finished on 8/11, ahead of Loek van Wely (7½/11) and Jan Smeets (7/11). He followed this with a share of second place at the 4th EU Individual Open Chess Championship in Liverpool, joining Viktor Láznička and Nigel Short on 7½/10 (after winner Jan Werle, 8/10). After topping a strong open tournament in Gibraltar in 2010, he won the 2010 British Chess Championship, held in Canterbury, with an undefeated score of 9.5/11and shared second place at the Chicago Open. Further successes followed in 2011, with a share of first place at the Philadelphia World Open and a clear win at the British Championship in Sheffield. Adams finished outright first at the Los Angeles Metropolitan International and at the European Team Championship, was awarded the gold medal for his performance on board one.