Utut and the royal game

Utut and the royal game

There has been nothing about the "royal game" in The Jakarta
Post. Kompas reported on its front page on Aug. 2 the match
between shining chess grand master Utut Adianto and Latvian
international master Daniel Friedman at the World Chess
Tournament at Las Vegas, USA, on July 31. Adianto played a risky
game and surrendered on the 49th move from a Slavish opening.

At the 15th move Adianto decided to sacrifice a quality rook
against the black queen's knight -- at c6 -- to gain an attacking
advantage. Friedman could force an exchange of the queen, and it
was enough for the side with the material advantage to press on
by playing a positional game.

Because he has a better Elo rating, of 2607, against
Friedman's 2526, Adianto apparently had underestimated his
younger opponent and tried to intimidate him, so to speak. It
turned out that Friedman is a positional player to be likened
with former world champion Botwinnik or Smislov. Utut Adianto is
probably technically superior but he prefers as a rule to play
beautifully, often sacrificing his pieces to win an attacking
position like the late Paul Keres, also from Latvia.

Chess is a royal game because only the nobility played the
game in olden times. In modern times, when chess computers reign
supreme in speed and logic, the sacrifice is an effective weapon.

Some players, like Aljechin, prefer to exhaust their opponents
by endless positional end games into about 200 moves. But there
were and there still are geniuses who do not mind to die in
beauty, and they are looking for opportunities, alas, not with
patience, but with eagerness. They may win the day if they are
lucky, but if they are unlucky or too sure of themselves they may
likely make a blunder.

From chess, politicians can learn a lot about morals. To
accept defeat and concede your opponents' superiority, for
example. It teaches us that winning is not everything in life. A
defeat may teach us more than a victory, such as in a democratic
contest such as a general election. Personally, I have learned
one thing about chess players. Unlike politicians, they are true
to themselves and rarely are they hypocritical or do they violate
the law or conventions they promise to respect.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta