Young Susanto leads national chess competition

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sixteen-year-old Susanto Megaranto is assured of becoming the leader of the national chess league after the competition completed six of its planned eight legs at the weekend.

The official standing has yet to be released, but, given the sixth leg's matches, in which Susanto came out runner-up behind FIDE Master (FM) Irwanto Sadikin, his climb to the top of the league is unstoppable.

Edhi Handoko, who had led the league after five legs, was doomed to lose his place when he fell to a disgraceful mid table in the sixth leg's matches.

The two-day matches were staged at the Sumanti Chess Center in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

The inaugural chess league, which was launched in August last year, is played in a monthly cycle, each being staged for two days, usually on Saturdays and Sundays.

The matches are being played over nine rounds in rapid chess with 25 minutes of thinking time allowed for each player.

The top 24 players in the master division and top eight in the non-master division will qualify for the knock-out stage of the grand final in March.

The league had an initial entry of 140 players at the start, but the number has been reduced by more than half since then.

"The players with only slight chances of advancing to the next stage are beginning to abandon their matches. It's deplorable. I'd love to have them in the competition throughout," Bunawan, the tournament director, told The Jakarta Post here on Monday.

The weekend's matches featured 66 players.

Bunawan also complained about a lack of interest on the part of national top masters although the league offered overseas trips to the winners.

Grand Master (GM) Ruben Gunawan, GM Cerdas Barus, and International Master (IM) Danny Juswanto are among the Indonesian chess masters who have decided to skip the competition.

Edhi Handoko is the only GM in the tournament. He lived up to his status by winning the fourth leg in addition to his generally consistent performance in the other legs.

However, the 42-year-old crashed at the weekend, collecting only 5 points out of a possible 9.

Irwanto, who took the third leg, finished top after amassing 8 points. Susanto, the winner of the first and fifth legs, came second with 7.5 points followed by Reza Achmad a point behind.