Irene gets silver at chess Olympiad

The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Irene Kharisma secured a silver medal at the chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain, while fellow young star Susanto Megaranto helped Indonesia's men's team improve their rank from last season.

The biennial world's team chess tournament, which featured 1,100 players from 128 countries, concluded its 17-day and 14th round competition on Friday with Ukraine winning the men's trophy and China retaining the women's trophy, according to www.chess- olympiad.com.

Irene, collected 10 points from 12 games with personal point percentage of 83.3 to emerge as the second best performer on board three behind Zhao Xue of China.

Irene, 12, becomes the fourth player in the list of Indonesia's medal winners in the history of chess Olympiad.

GM Utut Adianto, who skipped this year's event, won silver on board two in 1986 and gold on board one in 2000. Women's player Lindri Juni Wijayanti took silver on board one in 1992 and GM Cerdas Barus played on board two in 2002 to win gold.

Irene completed her unbeaten run with success to attain a FIDE Master (FM) title. After being rested in the 12th and 13th rounds, she returned on Friday to help Indonesia win 3-0 over Fiji.

Indonesia's women's team, whose other members included Evi Lindiawati, Stefani Dian Cheri and Norasa Verdiana, collected a total 20 points -- from five wins, three draws, six losses -- to finish in 59th place out of 87 teams.

Meanwhile, their male compatriots improved Indonesia's ranking from 65th in Slovenia in 2002 to 48th in Spain, thanks to an impressive performance by 17-year-old Susanto. Indonesia did not send a women's team to Slovenia.

Susanto played in all 14 rounds to amass nine points from seven wins, four draws and three losses. With opponents holding ratings above his average, the point collection gave Susanto, whose rating is 2439, a performance rating of above 2600 when the competition entered its 12th round. This automatically earned him a GM title.

A good run was also displayed by other young players with Tirta Chandra contributing seven points from 13 games and Taufik Halay scoring 6.5 points from 10 games.

More experienced Dede Liu gave a poor performance, registering only four points from 13 games while Ruben Gunawan, who was sidelined by illness since round eight, notched up three points from six games.

Indonesia overcame Tajikistan 2.5-1.5 in the final round on Friday. Susanto and Taufik chalked up a full point with a win over Suhrob Khamdamov Suhrob and Negmat Ziyaev respectively.

Dede drew with Jamshed Isaev while Tirta Chandra lost to Rashid Khouseinov.