Awam wins, but fails to lift team over Brazil
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia's Awam Wahono beat Darcy Lima in the ninth round of the Chess Olympiad in Bled, Slovenia, on Tuesday, but the win was not enough to lift the team over Brazil, according to reports.
Bandung-based FIDE Master (FM) Awam, playing the black pieces, devised a Catalan defense and took control of the queen's side after 15 moves.
Lima shifted his pieces to the king's side for a possible counterstrike, but Awam was able to fight off the danger. The game ended after 45 moves.
Despite Awam's win, the Indonesian team could not avoid defeat at the hands of the Brazilians, falling by the score of 1.5-2.5.
Fifteen-year-old Susanto Megaranto and Irwanto Sadikin lost to Grand Master (GM) Rafael Leitao and GM Henrique Mecking, respectively, while the match between Ivan Situru and GM Giovanni Vescovi ended in a draw.
After allowing "outsiders" to move to the top of the standings, European participants have begun to dominate the tournament, with Russia, Hungary, England, Germany and Georgia taking over the top five places in the standings.
China and India are lurking just out of the top five following their defeats by Russia and England in the ninth round respectively, each by the score of 1-3.
After resting in the ninth round, Cerdas Barus is set to return for Indonesia's match against Iraq. It is hoped that Cerdas will be able to continue his unbeaten run to push himself closer to winning a GM title.
However, chess columnist Kristianus Liem said despite his unbeaten streak, which has earned him an overall 7.5 points so far, Cerdas should not expect automatically to be granted GM status.
"It is still an outside chance for him (to win GM status) because most of his wins have come at the expense of unrated players or those with lower ratings than his," Kristianus said in a release.
"If he fails, he will have to be content with being the highest scoring player on board three to win a gold medal," he said.
With the tournament having another three rounds to go, Indonesia's has dropped to 62nd place with 20.5 points, tied with Iraq, which played to a 2-2 draw with Venezuela in the 10th round on Tuesday.