Mandaluyung upsets Moscow in World Cities Chess C'ship

JAKARTA (JP): Top seed Moscow surprisingly lost to unfancied Filipino side Manduluyung in the second round of the World Cities Chess Championship here yesterday.

Filipino youngster Ronald Bancod scored a sensational win over former world title candidate Sergei Tiviakov in four hours and almost 100 moves.

With Bancod's win, Manduluyung beat Moscow 2.5VP-1.5VP.

Oslo missed a chance to take first place when its top player, Einar Gausel, lost to GM Herman Suradiradja of the Depok Beji team.

The match between Gausel and Herman created a dispute when an arbiter stepped in and stopped the players' clock when both Gausel and Herman had less than 30 seconds to complete the game.

Gausel complained that Herman was moving a pawn as if it was a powerful queen -- the pawn had reached the eighth rank but had not been replaced with a queen as the rules required.

Although Gausel was awarded a time penalty, it was insufficient for him to save the game. Herman checkmated Gausel with six seconds left.

On the first day of the championship Tuesday, Australian Grandmaster Ian Rogers lost to an unknown Indonesian.

Rogers, whose elo rating is 2,579 and playing on the first board, lost to Junaid Jaya Pamungkas from East Kalimantan's Bontang team in the 32nd move of the Sicilian defense.

Rogers is a member of the Sydney team. Although Rogers lost, Sydney beat Bontang 2.5VP-1.5VP.

The Australian GM said he was surprised by how well his opponent played.

"Junaid played well and I accept my defeat," he said.

Twenty-eight cities from 16 countries including Indonesia, which is represented by 12 cities are competing in the event.

The Indonesian cities are Depok Margonda, Depok Beji, Depok Kelapa Dua, Bandung, Jakarta A, Jakarta B, Jakarta Enerpac, Yogyakarta, Medan, Bontang, Ambon and Jakarta-Gunadarma.

The foreign cities are Moscow (Russia), Donetsk (Ukraine), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Oslo (Norway), Sydney (Australia), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), Mandaluyung (the Philippines), Yangon and Mandalay (Myanmar), Kuala Lumpur and Kuching (Malaysia), Sentosa and Raffles City (Singapore), Hong Kong (China), Victoria (Seychelles) and Noumea (New Caledonia).

The championship, which ends July 14, features 17 Grandmasters, 15 International Masters and three women International Masters.

Eston Malau of the Medan team beat GM Sergey Zagrebelny of the Tashkent team. But Medan eventually lost to Tashkent 1-3 where Roberto Perangin-angin, Yohannes Simbolon and Sukarnedi lost to GM Saidali Tuldachev, GM Mihal Sataey and MI Dimitry Kaiumpov. (lnt)

Second round results:

Oslo vs Depok Beji 2-2, Depok Kelapa vs Jakarta 2.5-1.5, Ho Chih Minh vs Jakarta A 2.5-1.5, Mandaluyung vs Moscow 2.5-1.5, Donetsk vs Bandung 2.5-1.5, Tashkent vs Depok Margonda 2-2, Sydney vs Ambon 3.5-0.5, Bontang vs Jakarta Women 3.5-0.5, Medan vs Yogyakarta 3.5-0.5, Yangon vs Kuala Lumpur 3.5-0.5, Mandalay vs Jakarta B 3-1, Raffles City vs Sentosa 3.5-0.5, Hong Kong vs Kuching 2-2, Victoria vs Noumea 3-1, and Palu vs Bogor 4-0.