Cup offers 'big' prize money to local players<\/p>\n
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The 2nd Hamzah Haz Cup, an annual chess open tournament, will
\nstart in June, with the cash prizes on offer drastically rising
\nfrom Rp 5 million last year to Rp 45 million (around US$4,500),
\nthe organizing committee announced here on Monday.<\/p>\n
The total prize money means that the Hamzah Cup, named after
\nthe current Vice President, will be the most lucrative chess
\nevent a local organizer has ever staged.<\/p>\n
Last month's Pusam Open in Samarinda, East Kalimantan,
\nprovided a total of Rp 42 million in cash prizes.<\/p>\n
\"We want to put more weight financially on the tournament to
\nattract as many participants as possible,\" committee chairman
\nEndin Soefihara told a media conference at the Tanah Abang chess
\ncenter, the prospective competition ground in Central Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"We want to follow up what we have started for the sake of
\ncontinuity of the event. We are committed to helping popularize
\nchess in the country,\" said Endin, a House member from the United
\nDevelopment Party (PPP). The party is currently chaired by Hamzah
\nHaz.<\/p>\n
The tournament, which is scheduled to run from June 3 through
\nJune 9, will adopt a mixed format, combining both round-robin and
\nknockout (KO) systems, with the organizer aiming to prevent match
\nfixing.<\/p>\n
Around 240 participants are expected to turn up. They will be
\nsplit into four groups, each playing nine rounds of conventional
\nchess.<\/p>\n
The top two from each group will be awarded a place in the
\nfinal stage, at which the competition shifts to a KO contest of
\nrapid chess. A rapid game allows players 25 minutes of thinking
\ntime, compared with 3 hours in conventional games.<\/p>\n
\"We have never adopted this kind of competition before. We
\nhave opted for this system as hopefully it will be able to avoid
\nthe likelihood of participants fixing games,\" Hendry Jamal, from
\nthe Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi) said.<\/p>\n
While it will be new to local chess players, the system has
\nfor a long time been an option in international events, the
\nlatest being the Eurotel in Prague, which concluded at the
\nweekend.<\/p>\n
However, that tournament, which lined up the best 32 players
\nin the world, used a KO system first before shifting to
\nconventional chess in the final.<\/p>",
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