Utut in narrow defeat at France chess c'ship

JAKARTA (JP): Utut Adianto wasted a golden opportunity to upset world number five and top seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine at the Intercontinental Rapid Chess tournament in Cap d'Agde, France, on Sunday.

The game hung in the balance until Utut blundered on the 37th move, allowing Ivanchuk to bounce back and emerge the winner on better possessions.

"I should have moved my castle to e8 rather than moving the knight to f6. The mistake opened the e column for him to promote a pawn. I had to sacrifice my rook to avert such a dangerous promotion," Utut said as quoted by Antara from France.

Playing confidently with black, Utut defied Ivanchuk's complicated strategy he developed from a Reti opening. The Indonesian took over the initiative after 15 moves and appeared to gain an upper hand after he forced the Ukrainian to defend strongly for most of the rest of the contest.

"I have to give him credit for applying a flawless defense that kept my pressure at bay," Utut said of his opponent, whose elo rating is 2,730 compared to his 2,610.

Utut remains winless after Sunday's Group B game. He was forced to a draw by Waller Arenciba of Cuba in Saturday's opener.

Home favorite Etienne Bacrot leads Group B with a perfect two points from two games after beating Arenciba in Sunday's other match.

Draws were in order in the contests between Thien Hai Dao of Vietnam and Ivan Morovic of Chile, and defending champion Boris Gelfand of Belarus and Esam Mohamed of Egypt.

In Group A, official world champion Anatoly Karpov had to settle for a disappointing draw with unheralded Brazilian Giovanni Vescovi.

Karpov was not the only underachieving favorite of the quadrennial event. World women's champion Judith Polgar crashed to African representative Watu Kabesi of Sudan.

A dejected Karpov remained confident about his chance to win the tournament despite the shaky start.

"This is my first match and there are more important matches. I am at my best form to win the tournament," Karpov said.

Sixteen players from five continents are playing in the US$48,000 tournament. They are divided into two round-robin groups, with the top four players from each qualifying for the knockout second stage. (lnt)