Zhu upsets Utut in Makita chess tourney

Zhu upsets Utut in Makita chess tourney

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Zhu Chen and Antoaneta Stefanova raised their games on Tuesday
to beat their respective Indonesian men's rivals in the second
round of the Makita-Lakoni International Grand Master Chess
Tournament.

Zhu, the world women's champion from China, held off the
challenge from Indonesia's number one grand master Utut Adianto
to bring their Slav game to her victory after 68 moves.

Meanwhile, Stefanova stopped Utut's prodigy Susanto Megaranto
in 64 moves in a Ruy Lopez game. The outcome might be a sign that
the European champion from Bulgaria might be returning to the
winning form that earned her an impressive victory in 2002 in
Surabaya, East Java.

Indonesia had something to cheer about after Danny Juswanto
inflicted Hoang Thanh Trang with a second defeat in the
tournament. Hoang's first loss came at the hands of Susanto in
the opening round.

Danny took 56 moves in a Nizmo game to force the Vietnamese to
surrender.

In the Utut-Zhu game, the victory avenged Zhu's Sunday defeat
when Utut overpowered her in two games of their blindfold chess
exhibition.

Utut said a string of faulty mid-game moves had brought about
his defeat.

"Our positions were generally on a par entering the middle of
the game. Then I fell into a string of inaccurate moves. That's
chess -- we can't afford to slip up," he said.

Hendry Djamal, a chess observer, said Zhu's victory was
clinched in an enterprising exchange of her queen for Utut's two
rooks in the 30th move.

"With his own queen and bishop locked in, Utut's chance to
attack was practically finished," he said, adding that Zhu's
victory had been helped by Utut's overly aggressive play.

Utut said he could still have brought the game to a draw if he
had found a good square for his queen.

"The queen should have been moved to the e3 square, instead
the d2. On d2, I was heading for an immediate defeat," he said.

As the participants will play each other twice, Utut was
hopeful that he could find a winning strategy in the next match.

Susanto said that the wrong tactic in the end had cost him the
game. "I shouldn't have swapped the rooks," he said.

With the rooks swapped, Stefanova, who drew in her opening
game with Zhu, used her advantage of being a pawn ahead to round
up the game to her victory.

Zhu, Stefanova and Danny are now tied at 1.5 points, and Danny
drew with Utut in their first match.

Susanto, the youngest player in the tournament, has collected
a point, and is followed by Utut on half a point and Hoang, who
has yet to score a point.