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