Chess body wants to popularize the games

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Chess Association wants to increase the popularity of chess.

"Although chess is already popular in the community I want this brain sport be more popular. Chess is known only in big cities and is not so popular in the villages," Cholid Ghozali said during the opening of the upgrading course for sports journalists in Cipayung, West Java, on Wednesday.

Ghozali said that in Russia chess was one of the most popular sports.

He said most of the top chess players come from Russia because good players there could make money out of it.

"In Russia, the teaching of chess starts from 10-years old and they are provided with good facilities. Discipline in chess is very strict in Russia and this applies to all players including grandmasters," Ghozali said.

Ghozali said Indonesia had potentially good players but that they lack discipline and facilities.

"If only discipline is applied, I am optimistic we can produce more grandmasters to replace their elders," he said.

The association's secretary, Jamal Jamil, said Wednesday that discipline was now being applied to young Indonesian chess players.

"We are now applying strict discipline as many young players lack this and often skip classes which later leads to negligence in studying the sport. In Russia, discipline is so strict that sanctions are given to those who skip any part of the courses," Jamal said.

Ghozali said one way to popularize chess was to provide accurate news which benefits not only chess enthusiasts but the general public too.

"What I mean by accurate news is the correct reporting of competitions. I have observed that there are many mistakes such as the wrong moves being reported, and this puzzles the readers," Ghozali said.

The three-day upgrading course was attended by 24 journalists from the print and electronic media. The journalists were given intensive training by chess experts Jamal, Harry Djauhari, Mukmin Penggabean and Hendry Jamal.

All the experts are national masters and international referees.

The course closed on Thursday with a five-session tournament among the journalists.

Bad experience

Meanwhile, Grandmaster Utut Adianto spoke of his troubles at a recent tournament in Argentina.

He said his loss in the tournament was motivation for him to improve.

"I only had four points and I lost because I lost confidence. Nevertheless, this loss does not dismay make me. I will study harder and hopefully regain my confidence," Utut said.

His loss in Argentina cost him five points off his 2,615 elo rating.

Utut said to become a good chess player, one should learn from losses, not only from victory.

"I lost confidence because I had to play for up to five hours. Now I want to relax first and prepare thoroughly for the coming tournaments." (lnt)