Chess prodigy goes to Greece before SEAG
Chess prodigy goes to Greece before SEAG
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Eleven-year-old Irene Kharisma Sukandar will take on a timely,
potentially testing warm-up field ahead of the upcoming Southeast
Asian (SEA) Games when she takes part in the 2003 World Youth
Chess Championships in Greece.
Irene is the youngest member of the Indonesian sporting
delegation to the SEA Games in December, and her Greek run should
provide her with a test of her skills prior to her departure to
Vietnam.
The championships, which offer competitions in the U-10, U-12,
U-14, U-16 and U-18 boys and girls categories, will be held from
Oct. 23 through Nov. 2 at the Athos Palace and Pallini Beach
Hotels in the holiday resort of Kallithea, Halkidiki.
Irene, twice national champion in her age category, will
compete in the U-12. The team is optimistic she could finish
within the top ten.
"Irene is currently the strongest (girls' junior) player we
have. We are optimistic she can take a top ten place in Greece,"
team manager Eka Putra Wirya said when contacted by The Jakarta
Post here on Wednesday.
Kristianus Liem, the director of the Utut Adianto Chess
School, where Irene has trained, said that they had imposed an
intensive training regime on the protege for two weeks.
"In the last three days, she was trained by Utut (Adianto)
himself," Kristianus said. Utut is Indonesia's number one chess
grand master, and will represent Indonesia at the World
Championships in the Netherlands in November.
"The training with Utut aimed more at developing her mental
attitude. She should now be well-prepared for the tournament,"
Kristianus said.
From the tournament website, the U-12 girls' competition lists
91 players, including Chinese Tan Zhongyi, last year's winner and
2001 winner in the U-10 category.
The tournament, which will be played over 11 rounds, sees an
overall 593 players in the boys' and 404 players in the girls'
category, from 79 countries.
In last year's tournament, also in Greece, Andrean
Susilodinata, who competed in the boys' U-12, fell out of the top
ten in the final standings.