Floods delay Junior Grand Prix chess finals

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.