Floods delay Junior Grand Prix chess finals

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The recent floods have delayed the National Junior Grand Prix chess finals, initially scheduled for this month.

The tournament was to have commenced last Saturday and been underway until Tuesday at the Utut Adianto Chess School (SCUA) in Bekasi, an eastern suburb of Jakarta.

The Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi) will use the tournament, now re-scheduled from March 8 to March 12, to scout for chess talent.

Eka Putra Wirya, the chairman of the organizing committee, said that the tournament had to be postponed because some of the participants would not have been able to turn up.

"They were among the flood victims who have had to cope with the aftermath of the floods," he told The Jakarta Post here on Monday evening.

Although the tournament site is actually safe from flooding, according to Eka, the decision to delay the event had to be taken on the grounds that the candidates would not have sufficient time to recover from damage done to their homes.

"We had to put it off until next month because we were not sure whether conditions would return to normal that soon," he said.

The tournament will feature around 90 participants, 75 of whom were winners at the preceding five circuits in five cities -- Bandung, Banjarmasin, Jakarta, Medan and Surabaya.

Another 15 will make up the contending list as wild-card recipients. But team members of Dream Team I, will not be among the list as had been planned.

"We have decided against deploying Dream Team I in the tournament. We presume that they are no match for the other juniors," Eka said, adding that the tournament was aimed at forming Dream Team II.

The participants are divided by gender and two age groups -- 10 to 14 and 15 to 18.

Dream Team refers to Percasi's ambitious project, which strives to bring national chess to the world level.

Dream Team I comprises Susanto Megaranto, Tirta Chandra, Taufik Halay and Andrean Susilodinata, the three combined have an average age of 14.

Eka said that they would expect around ten juniors, under 12 years of age, from the upcoming tournament, to be recruited by Dream Team II.

"We are going to groom them for two to three months and see whether they have any chess prospects," he said, adding that the first overseas test for the candidates would be at the ASEAN championship in Kuala Lumpur next June.