Taufik eying silver in Cannes

JAKARTA (JP): Taufik Hailai of Indonesia has a chance to finish as runner-up in the 10-year-old age group of the Junior World Chess Championships in Cannes, France after winning one point against Briton Gawain Jones early yesterday.

His victory lifted him into the third place with 7.5 Victory Points. He now meets Radjabov Teimour of Ajerbaizan in the 11th round for the silver medal battle.

Teimour was on 8.0 VP after the 10th round following victory over Hungarian Gabor Papp early yesterday.

Iranian Alavi Moghaddom, who has collected 9.0 VP after 10 games, is likely to win the title. He beat Davit Baramidze of Georgia yesterday.

Moghaddom only needs a draw in the last round to win the gold medal.

"I'll beat Radjabov to win the silver medal," said the nine- year-old Taufik, who is still a third grade student in Tangerang.

Taufik defeated Jones on the 60th move using a Dragon Sicilian defense. His route to victory was opened after Jones made a mistake on the 15th move.

"Jones should have lost on the 30th move but he continued until the 60th move," said Indonesian team manager, Kristianus Liem.

Kristianus said Taufik had a good chance to win the silver.

"He has a chance to beat Teimour because Taufik knows his opponent's style very well. I hope Taufik can take a revenge for teammate Susanto Megaranto's loss to Teimour in the seventh round of matches," he said.

Susanto also beat Volodymyr Eryomenko of Ukraine in the 10th round and made the Ukrainian cry as the was not in the top 10. The Indonesian won on the 30th move after using a French opening.

Susanto has collected 6.5 VP and is in the top 10. He still has a chance of making the top five if he wins his last match.

Indonesia's female representative Evie Lindiawati, who competed in the 12-year-old age group, won against Dejana Dedic of Croatia in the 10th round. She won on the 44th move after a Scotland opening.

Evie has collected 5.0 VP after 10 rounds.

Compatriot Bagas Prama Ananta, in the 14-year-old age group, lost to Mohammed Haddat Seni of Iran on the 60th move after a Sicilian variant of the Svesnikov defense.

"Generally, our junior chess players have shown good form in Cannes. We only wanted them to get more experience but Taufik and Susanto performed very well, beyond our expectation," Kristianto said, as quoted by Antara. (yan)