18 years old Susanto Megaranto took home the cup with 12 VP, one and half points ahead his seniors IM Nasib Ginting and FM Awam Wahono. Arif Yanuar of DIY became the winner of the shortest game. His opponent got disqualified before even moved the pieces because his cell phone rang.
The event was series of match between vice Women World Champion IM Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia and three Indonesian young talents Andrean Susilodinata, Tirta Chandra Purnama, and Susanto Megaranto. Lady with a mission Alexandra Kosteniuk showed a class of her own by winning all the games.
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine visited Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) in 1930. At that time he was the World Champion. We found only one game from his simultaneous exhibition held at the city of Surabaya. In that game Alekhine won rather easily against Prof Willem Frederik Wertheim.
Three best Indonesian players joined three world class women players to participate in this unique event. Indonesian players were hand in hand to lift GM Utut Adianto to the top spot but failing miserably. Adianto got 3.5 points of possible 4 from Indonesian players. Another sad day for fair play.
IM Ardiansyah edged out Fabian Lumentut on better Solkoff to grab number one spot. Defending champion Denny Juswanto found himself at 8th. The Indonesian first GM, Herman Suradiradja, was anonymous most of the time. Losing to unheralded players like Hengky Wijaya was simply unacceptable for a player of his stature.
IM Edhi Handoko rekindled the memory of 1978 National Championship when he won the event as a teenager. The new kid in town Nasib Ginting caught everyone off guard by taking runner up position only half points shy from Handoko. Among his victims were IM Ardiansyah and IM Ronny Gunawan.
WFM Sopiko Guramishvili entered the event as the runner up of Girls World Youth Chess Championship U12 2003 at Halkidiki, Greece. Irene Sukandar placed herself at 6-9 in the same event. The gap of class between these two was arguably noticeable as Guramishvili showed her domination throughout.
