Susanto expected to continue impressive run at Makita chess
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Susanto Megaranto is expected to follow up his impressive SEA Games run when he plays in the Makita Grand Master chess invitational here in February.
The 17-year-old Indonesian will be up against his chess tutors GM Utut Adianto, IM Danny Juswanto and three of the world's elite female chess players in the tournament, which has a total of US$12,500 in cash prizes.
The three visiting players are Zhu Chen of China, Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and Hoang Thanh Trang of Vietnam. It will be Stefanova's second appearance in Indonesia after her triumphant run in the Wismilak tournament in Surabaya in 2002.
While Utut should be a clear favorite, Susanto whom Utut has hailed as his likely successor as the country's number one player hopes he will be able to pull off an upset as he did at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Vietnam last December.
Susanto managed either a draw or a win against a number of the region's best grand masters on his way to the silver medal. His only defeat came at the hands of Utut who won the gold.
"Susanto has proved that he has the potential to beat his older opponents," Eka Putra Wirya, the chairman of the organizing committee, said when contacted by The Jakarta Post here on Monday.
Given his age and rating, Susanto will still be the underdog, a billing which Eka said should psychologically favor the teenager.
Susanto's elo-rating is 2458 just ahead of Vietnam's Hoang Thanh Trang, whose 2447 is the lowest rated player in the competitve field.
The matches will be played in a double round-robin format, in which everybody will play each other twice. With the chess scoring system awarding one point for a win, half for a draw and zero for a loss, a player with a perfect record would score 10 points.
"To make seven points, as we expect him to do, will definitely be difficult. But if he only manages around four or five, it will be enough for him to increase his rating," Eka said.
Meanwhile, asked about his female opponents, the typically smug Utut predicted that he would beat any woman player.
But Utut, who will be Indonesia's only representative at the upcoming World Chess Championships, did not go so far as to predict a perfect run.
"It would be almost impossible to expect a huge score. Some of the guys are not easy to beat," he told the Post on a separate occasion.
Perhaps someone should remind Utut of Miss Stefanova's impressive showing at the 2002 Wismilak, in which the Bulgarian scraped to victory over her opponents -- all of them men.
Utut did not participate in the tournament.