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.