Indonesia crashes in Chess Olympiad

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's teams, men and women, failed to score victories at the 11th round of the 34th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul and had to face the fact that its ranking has been dropping.

Indonesian men's players had to bow out to Sweden 1.0-3.0 Victory Points (VPs) on Wednesday.

Indonesia, which one day earlier finished 34th in overall standing, only finished in the 45th place with a total of 23.5 VPs.

Grand Master Utut Adianto, who has never lost in any of his matches here, was quickly forced to make a draw offer to Ulf Andersson in only the 13th move.

Danny Juswanto also had to make another tie offer to Ralf Akesson after a hard match in the 45th move.

Unfortunately, Ruben Gunawan and Cerdas Barus failed to follow their compatriots as they both lost in the remaining matches.

Ruben had to give up 0.0-1.0 to Jonny Hector in the 31st move while Cerdas had to fight to the 60th move before he finally bowed out to Stellan Brynell.

Indonesia was scheduled to meet Belarus at the 12th round on Thursday.

Russia clinched its position at the top with a total of 30.5 VP points followed by Germany in the second place with 29.0 VPs and Ukraine in third position with 28.5 VPs.

In the women's sector, Indonesia also failed to score another victory as its players lost 1.0-2.0 VPs to IBSA.

First player Upi D. Tamim managed to offer a tie to Lubov Zslitzova-Lisenko 0.5-0.5 in the 52nd move. Ai Zakiah also had to offer a draw to Teresa Debowska in an exhausting match in the 75th move.

Unfortunately, Yeni Riayaningrum lost 0.0-1.0 to Esmeralda Sanchez in the 24th move.

Indonesia was to take on Iran Thursday.

In overall standing, China still leads with a total of 26.0 VPs followed by Georgia with 23.5 VPs. Russia, which has been clinching its position in the third place, had to finish in fourth place with 21.0 VPs after the Netherlands overtook the third place with 22.0 VPs. (yan)