IndonesiaBase

The second leg of the circuit was off to start after only a couple days break from the first one. The convincing winner of the first leg Filipino Barlo Nadera seemed to run out of gas. He played only three decisive games and drew the rest. His overall score was less than 50%. The championship trophy belonged to Vietnamese IM Từ Hoàng Thông.

Originally GM Vassily Smyslov of Russia was the player who would play GM Utut Adianto. Unfortunately the ex-World Champion could not make to Jakarta because of health reasons. In less than a week the organiser had to find a substitute. In such sort notice GM Yasser Seirawan of USA kindly agreed to play Utut.

Non-master Barlo Nadera of Philippines won the event but the host didn’t finish with empty handed. Indonesian Junior Champion 1993 FM Bobby Kurniawan scored 8.5 VP that was good enough for the IM norm. Worth noting that Bobby had to suffer two losses from his compatriots, GM Ardiansyah and IM Andi Suhendra, en route to his norm.

Twenty four cities from seventeen countries participated in this event. Total players was 116 with 18 GMs, 2 WGMs, 11 IMs, and 1 WIM. GM Wesley Barbasa So (2667), GM Yu Yangyi (2652), GM Lǐ Chāo (2646), GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev (2618), and GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (2606) were the top rated players.

The tournament was a double success for Indonesian WFM Lindri Juni Widjajanti. First she got a WIM title. Secondly she won the tournament and went through to the interzonal in Swiss. Lindri actually tied for first with ex-Russian Irina Berezina of Australia. The champion was going to be decided in a play-off but Irina returned home for health reasons.

The tournament was jam packed with seven 2600+ GMs out of ten participants. Top flight GMs like Michał Krasenkow, Mikhail Gurevich, and Ivan Sokolov were on the list. Veteran GM Lajos Portisch won the event without playing in full gear. He was a full point ahead of the runner-ups, GM Utut Adianto, GM Eugenio Torre, and GM Krasenkow.

The last round’s top five boards featured GM Torre-GM Đào, GM Barus-IM Sadikin, IM Purnama-GM Gagunashvili, GM Barua-IM Liu, and GM Megaranto-Andika. Barus, Gagunashvili, Liu, and Megaranto trounced their opponents while Torre made peace with Đào. The results handed the cup to GM Cerdas Barus from Indonesia.