The event would be long remembered. It not only reached a milestone (10th) and was held in ‘a chess city’ Banjarmasin, South Borneo, but also became a witness to the emerging of the best Indonesian player for years to come. He was Ardiansyah, a 17-year-old high school graduate from Malang, East Java.
The event was part of the Women World Chess Championship 1993-6 cycle. Seven seats were available towards Candidate Matches. The top seeds, GM Pia Cramling and GM Maia Chiburdanidze with their towering ratings, destined to have owned the two seats. The rest of players were going to battle for the left spots.
The more the merrier. Pekan Olahraga Nasional (National Games) or PON held the chess event for the very first time. It was certainly warm welcomed by chess enthusiasts all over Indonesia. No less than 152 players of 25 provinces took part. Up to the year of 1969 it went down in history as the biggest in term of the number of participants.
Indonesia defeated Australia 6.5-3.5 in an internet U16 chess match on April 21, 2012. The Australian team was made up of players most aged 14 or 15. The Indonesian team included younger players between 10-15 who had already achieved Asian or ASEAN titles. The scoreline didn’t even do justice to reflect Indonesian team domination.
The 1967 National Chess Championship adopted a new format. First the participants, 30 of them, were divided into 4 qualification pools. From there 12 players plus the defending champion Ong Yok Hwa advanced to the final phase. Arovah Bachtiar and Ong dominated the final with 9 VP each. In the play-off Arovah beat Ong convincingly 2-0.
Chinese GM with a baby face, Lǐ Chāo won the tournament on a better Solkoff to Anand’s second in the last World Chess Championship, Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly. On the last day of the tournament, round 9, Lǐ beat GM Sandro Mareco while Ganguli couldn’t capitalize anything rather than draw againts the top seed of this event, GM Wáng Yuè.
The chess event was designed thoughtfully to pave away unrated players to get ratings. The list of participants showed a good balance between the number of rated players and the non rated ones. The number of rounds was unusual long 11 for a Swiss System tournament with only 50 players participated.
