Four players reach 4th round of chess meet

JAKARTA (JP): Four seeded men's players -- Grand Master (GM) Ruben Gunawan, International Master (IM) Danny Juswanto, GM Edhi Handoko and GM Ardiansyah -- breezed through the fourth round of the 34th Chess Olympic Games national selection tournament here.

Ruben, who tied in the first two rounds, managed Friday to defeat National Master (NM) Nessy Suheri of East Java in 38 moves by Reti opening.

Danny also won over NM Suyud Hartoyo of East Java in 48 moves using Grunfeld defense. Both Danny and Suyud went to the fourth round.

Edhi had to play for five hours before eliminating NM Denny Sonjaya of West Java in 69 moves by a Scotlandia opening. Edhi collected two points to go to the next round.

While veteran chess player Ardiansyah had to compete in two play-offs after overwhelming junior NM Yansen Lokanata in the 55th move using the Meren opening. But experience helped Ardiansyah win the play-off 2-0.

Two other players who went to the fourth round were FIDE Master (FM) Hamdani Rudin of West Java following a 2-0 win over NM Yoseph Majella of Jakarta, and FM Irwanto of Jakarta who won 1.5-0.5 over FM Awam Wahono of West Java.

Four players, IM Dede Liu of Jakarta, NM Sebastian Simanjuntak of Bali, NM Cecep Kosasih of West Java and FIDE Master Syarif Mahmud of Jakarta, had to perform in the play-offs after the draw results. Dede will challenge Sebastian while Cecep will play Syarif.

Four winners of the tournament will accompany GM Utut Adianto and IM Cerdas Barus to the Olympics, which will be held in Istanbul from Oct. 28 to Nov. 14. Utut and Cerdas received automatic places on the team.

On the women's side, NM Susianah Handayani of Jakarta and the Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi) Master (PM) Yenny Riayaningrum of East Java took over the top positions with 3.5 Match Point.

Susianah outclassed NM Yulianti Tjindarbumi (Jakarta) in the 69th move by a Queen Pawn opening while Yenny overcame NM Suyati of Central Java in the 47th move by Sicilia defense. The women's event employed the seven-round Swiss system.

Separately, Utut topped the standings of the Rapid Chess Tournament at Leipaja city, some 210-kms away from Riga, the capital of Latvia. Utut collected 1.5 points, along with GM Gabriel Malisauskas of Lithuania.

The press release from Utut said six top players -- GM Alexander Khalifman (Russia), GM Jaan Ehlvest (Estonia), GM Edvins Kengis (Latvia), GM Aloys Kveinys (Lithuania) GM Darmen Sadvakasov (Kazakhstan) and GM Maxim Dlugy (the United States) had just earned one point after competing in the first round on Thursday.

GM Nordmund Miezis (Latvia) and GM Anastas Zapolskis (Lithuania) each earned 0.5 points in the tournament in which each player is given only one-hour to study his moves. (ivy)