Utut to compete in CSAS Trophy chess tournament

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Grand Master (GM) Utut Adianto has been named one of three Asia-Pacific representatives for the US$48,000 CSAS Trophy intercontinental rapid chess tournament in Cap d'Agde, France, from Oct. 25 to Oct. 31.

Kristianus Liem, spokesman of the Indonesian Chess Association, said on Thursday that Utut would join Vietnamese GM Dao Thien Hai and GM Ian Rogers of Australia in the tournament, which will boast the world's top 16 chess players from five continents.

Asia's top player, Viswanathan Anand, refused to compete in the quadrennial event, to be held at a small town near Marseille.

"We hope Utut will perform well in the tournament, although he will face tough opposition," Kristianus said.

It will be Utut's second appearance in the chess meet.

Utut, smarting from a failure four years ago, has set his sights on finishing among the best of four this time around.

Leading the field will be Russian world champion Anatoly Karpov and defending champion Boris Gelfand of Belarus. Vasily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Alexei Shirov of Spain and Judith Polgar of Poland, the only female competitor, will set out to strengthen Europe's traditional stranglehold on the event.

Host France will feature national champion Josif Dorfman and Ethiene Bacrot, the tournament's youngest player.

Alexander Shabalov, Yasser Seirawan, Alex Yermolinsky and Gregory Kaidanov are likely to represent America.

The 16 chess wizards will be split into two groups for round- robin matches. The top four from each group will qualify for the knock-out second stage.

In rapid chess, a player is given 25 minutes to consider his move and another 10 seconds to make a move.

Players earn $1,000 by qualifying for the tournament. Qualifiers for the knock-out stage will gain $2,000 for every additional win. The tournament winner bags $16,000, and the runner-up half that amount.

Meanwhile, the Enerpac chess school will send three young players Taufik Halay (11), Susanto Megaranto (11) and Andrean Susilodinata (8) to the world age group championships at Oropesa de Mar in Castelion, Spain, from Oct. 24 to Nov. 7, and the world junior rapid chess tournament in Paris, from Nov. 14 to Nov. 18.

Title contenders in the age group tournament will be 1997 world youth champion Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, Alavi Moghaddam of Iran, Wang Yue of China, David Baramidze of Georgia, Gabor Papp of Hungary, Russia's Artiom Iljin and Evgeni Tomashevski and 1996 champion Harikrishna Pantea of India.

The Indonesian trio will leave for Spain on Oct. 20. (lnt)