Ong Yok Hwa defeated MHS Nainggolan in the Tournament of Challengers Play-off and won the right to challenge the defending champion Arovah Bachtiar. Arovah practically rolled over the challenger in the first three rounds of the final match. In the next rounds Ong suddenly rose to the occasion. The final score was 6.5-4.5 for Ong.
During the match WGM Lǐ Ruòfán employed a strategy that was not uncommon when playing against less experienced players: complicated things and waited for the mistakes from the opponent. It worked wonder. Lǐ Ruòfán overwhelmed WIM Irene Kharisma Sukandar and won the match convincingly 5-1.
All members of Indonesian team for Bled Chess Olympiad 2002 participated. They were GM Cerdas Barus, IM Ivan Situru, FM Irwanto Sadikin, FM Awam Wahono, Andi Nur Jabal Ahmad, and Susanto Megaranto. Susanto drew the most of spectators’ attentions. At fifteen he was the hottest rising star in Indonesia.
The second leg of the chess circuit was off to start after only a couple days break from the first one. The convincing winner of the first leg Filipino Barlo A Nadera ran 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.
The 7th National Championship had a different format than the previous ones. Firstly players had to qualify to represent their regions/provinces. Those players then played in a challenger tournament. Finally the winner of this tournament was arranged to play in a match with the defending champion Baris Hutagalung.
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 organizer had to find a substitute. GM Yasser Seirawan of USA kindly agreed to play Utut in such sort notice.
National Master Jumadi from Semarang City took the number one spot in convincing style. He scored full 5 VP as in many rounds. The preliminaries of the Provincial Games (Pekan Olahraga Daerah) were organized by each residency (keresidenan) of Central Java province to choose its representatives.
