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 event witnessed the birth of a new era when young generation was finally able to catch up the older one. A new generation, led by 13-year-old Medina Aulia, had taken over the mantle completely from WIM Upi Darmayana Tamin & co in the women section. Meanwhile, less than half of qualifying players had the age of 40+ in the men section.
The last round’s top five boards featured GM Torre-GM Đào, GM Barus-IM Sadikin, IM Purnama-GM Gagunashvili, GM Barua-IM Lioe, and GM Megaranto-Andika. Barus, Gagunashvili, Lioe, and Megaranto trounced their opponents while Torre made peace with Đào. The results handed the cup to GM Cerdas Barus from Indonesia.
Eight teams from cities/regencies of East Java province battled for Percasi Cup. As predicted Surabaya team won the cup. The only team who gave them a fierce challenge was Jember. Surabaya performance was highly boosted by their third board player, Machfud. Machfud excelled from the rest of pack by scoring 100%.
The 4th National Championship would be remembered as a tournament of surprises. Abubakar Baswedan stunned Arovah Bachtiar with better SB (Sonneborn Berger) to take home the championship trophy. Surabaya’s player Abubakar had never been at the final stage of the previous three National Championships.
IM Ardiansyah owned Jakarta in those years around. He practically swept over chess competitions at the city. This tournament was no exception. Ardiansyah won the master section quite easily with 1.5 points cushion to the runner-up Sutan Aritonang. The non-master section was co-championed by Edward L Tobing and Harry Siregar.
The tournament was all about Edhi Handoko. Handoko won category X tournament for the first time and he did it in convincing manner. He won five games and let only one loss. He topped the table ahead of many strong GMs: Tkachiev, Serper, Hráček, Blatný, and a bunch of Chinese best players Xú Jùn, Yè Jiāngchuān, Xiè Jūn, and Yè Róngguāng.
