A famous Dutch chess master Lodewijk Prins visited Indonesia in 1956. He spent two and half months traveling around Java, Sumatera, and Borneo. He played at Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung, Semarang, Medan, and Pematang Siantar. He also visited the home of the 1st Indonesia National Champion Arovah Bachtiar, the city of Banjarmasin, Borneo.
Vietnam is developing to be the next chess powerhouse alongside China and India. Their undeniable domination in the 26th SEA Games 2011 at Palembang, Indonesia, is just another proof. Vietnam seized 6 gold medals of possible 9. The rest of golds was shared equally by Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand.
GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia had to settle for a stalemate 3-3 in his chess match against Indonesian GM Susanto Megaranto. The match was held at Pyramid Building, Jakarta on April 14-19, 2010. Mchedlishvili was the overwhelming favorite before the match. He had over 100 points of Elos compared to Megaranto’s.
A twice Hungarian Women National Chess Champion WGM Tícia Gara played an up-and-coming 16-year-old Indonesian WGM Medina Warda Aulia. From the rating side the match-up was pretty even. Gara’s Elo of 2340 was not much different from Aulia’s 2332. The final scoreline confirmed the equilibrium. The match ended in a tie 3-3.
The Women World Champion 2004-6 GM Antoaneta Stefanova took two Indonesian WGMs, Medina Warda Aulia and Irene Kharisma Sukandar, in a match at SCUA (Utut Adianto Chess School), Bekasi. The match featured 4 rounds blitz and 2 rounds rapid. A newly-launched web based company ChessKu.com was the sponsor.
Chess has been contested in the 15th Asian Games at Doha, Qatar, December 2-14 2006. The tryouts were part of Indonesian team’s preparation for the event. They consisted of three matches involving three members of Indonesian team and three overseas players: Adianto vs Timman, Megaranto vs Torre, and Sukandar vs Krivec.
GM Utut Adianto was the heavy favorite to win the match. He not only had a rating upper hand but also had been involved in high profile blindfold matches with the likes of Judit Polgár and Anatoly Karpov. However GM Zhū Chén of China wasn’t to be discounted. Nevertheless she was the reigning Women World Chess Champion.
