Maria ties in 2nd chess duel

JAKARTA (JP): Smarting from her first-match loss, Maria Lucia, Indonesia's 1991 Asian Junior Chess Champion, forced Georgian grandmaster Nana Alexandria to a stalemate in their second battle in Surabaya on Saturday.

The standoff occurred at the 62nd move when Maria moved her knight to d2, which forced Nana's only free pawn into a deadlock position.

International judge Mukmin Panggabean announced that the game could not be continued as Nana could no longer move her free pawn and declared the game a draw. With this result, Nana was leading 1.5 - 0.5. Maria played her third match against Nana yesterday. Her fourth and final match takes place today. (arf)