Jakarta beats Lucknow at cities chess

JAKARTA: Jakarta, which is represented by the BNI Chess Club, beat Lucknow of India 3-1 on the opening day of the US$6,000 Cities Chess Championship in Aden, Yemen, on Thursday.

International Master (IM) Danny Juswanto and FIDE Master (FM) Syarif Mahmud scored wins while Grand Master (GM) Ardiansyah and FM Sukirman Teddy could only draw with their respective opponents, according to a press release.

The top three seeds all chalked up 4-0 wins -- Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) over Colombo (Sri Lanka), Namangan (Uzbekistan) over Sanaa (Yemen) and Manila (Philippines) over Aman (Jordan).

Jakarta, which was champion in 1993 and 1994 when GM Utut Adianto still featured in the team, is seeded third at the ongoing ten-day tournament. --JP