Utut ends chess meet joint second

JAKARTA (JP): After 34 see-saw moves, Indonesia's number one chess player Utut Adianto and Belgium's Mikhail Gurevich finally realized the inertia they were in and agreed to end the Gunadharma International Chess Tournament's last round with a shared point yesterday.

Utut, despite playing with the white pieces and being very familiar with Gurevich's Queen's Gambit defense, found himself so bogged down that on the 14th move he became impatient and employed his knight in attack. But Gurevich immediately answered the maneuver with a rook riposte which turned on his c file and thus kept the battle in the balance.

On the 23rd move, both tried a series of heavyweight exchanges to break the deadlock. It still took them 11 further moves before they accepted they had to draw.

With the result, Utut, together with grandmasters Eugene Torre of the Philippines and Michael Krasenkow of Poland, finished second with 5.5 points, behind Lajos Portisch, who came first with 6.5 after drawing with Torre on the 30th move yesterday.

According to tournament director Bunawan, these results mean that Utut and Krasenkow's present elo rating, 2,605, will increase by five. Portisch and Torre will have their elo ratings of 2,600 and 2,535 respectively, raised by 15.

In other matches, Krasenkow beat Ivan Sokolov of Bosnia- Herzegovina after 24 moves on a Gruenfeld defense; Utut's compatriot and wild card entrant Ruben Gunawan drew with Lubomir Ftacnik of Slovakia on the 20th move on an English defense; and Germany's Joerg Hickl lost to the other Indonesian wild card entrant Dede Liu on the 46th move on a Reti defense.

Bunawan, who is also chairman of the Gunadarma University chess club, said it was good for Utut to finish second because the 13-rated tournament, which means that only those with elo ratings of at least 2,551 are allowed to take part, is a tough tournament.

"Winning is very difficult. For instance, Hickl, who shared first place with Utut in the BNI chess tournament here in July, came bottom with only two points," Bunawan added. (arf)