Utut still on track for chess title

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's Utut Adianto stole the Europeans thunder in the Biel Master Invitation chess tournament in Switzerland after outwitting home favorite L. Brunner in a 10th round game on Wednesday evening.

Utut did everything right with his advantageous white pieces to demolish Brunner's Indian Nimzo defense after 41 moves of the short game shown live by German station TV DRS.

The victory, Utut's fourth win in the US$40,000 invitational tournament, earned the 30-year-old Indonesian 6.5 points to reduce his gap with provisional leader Alexei Dreev of Russia by just half a point. With three games remaining, Utut is entrenched in the title race.

Dreev remains on top of the standings despite his lackluster draw with Germany's Stefan Kindermann after 28 moves of play.

Latvian world number seven Alexei Shirov shared the third place with world number eight Boris Gelfand of Belarus with six points each.

Unbeaten Utut took the initiative from the start against the struggling Swiss, shrugging off Brunner's stubborn defense which apparently was aimed at forcing Utut to accept an equal ending.

"Chess pundits could not hide their astonishment at Utut's attacking game. Nobody knew of any Asian players but Visvanathan Anand before," Utut's manager Eka Putra Wirya said.

The victory also assured Utut an additional five points to his elo rating of 2,590. With a five-point reserve he gained after his victory in the Interzona tournament in Malaysia early last month, Utut is now among the elite grandmasters with elo ratings of 2,600.

"I'm very pleased to fulfill what I have dreamt of," Utut said after the match. He added that he now wants to finish among the top three in the 14-player tournament.

Utut was unseeded but managed to scalp both Jan Timman of Holland, a former world championship finalist, and Gelfand.(amd)

Results 1. A. Dreev - Kindermann 0.5 - 0.5 2. Timman - T. Kavhiev 0.5 - 0.5 3. Gelfand - de Firmian 0.5 - 0.5 4. Zvjaginsev - Milov 1 - 0 5. Gavrikov - Shirov 0.5 - 0.5 6. Campora - Hodgson 0.5 - 0.5 7. Utut - Brunner 1 - 0