The Telin Chess International Tournament

Text and photos by Anastasiya Karlovich and Kristian Liem

Telin Chess International Tournament 2011 is taking place from April 1st to 7th, 2011, in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the only international open tournament in Indonesia, but the local Chess Federation plans to continue organising such type of tournaments in the future.

The organisers of the event are the Indonesian Chess Federation and Telin Indonesian Telcom. Telin is a main sponsor of the event and a subsidiary company of PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk., the biggest telecommunication services and networking provider in Indonesia.

110 chess players from seven countries are participating in the nine round Swiss tournament with time controls of 90 minutes for the whole game with a 30 seconds increment for every move starting from the first move. Two special rules from the organisers: a “no-draw offer” rule until 30 moves, and the "zero tolerance" rule which force chess players to be seated at their boards when the games are scheduled to start.

The organisers provided an impressive prize fund: more than 25 thousand dollars in total. The prizes are 1st: US $5,000, 2nd: $3,000, 3rd: $2,000, 4th: $1,500, 5th: $1,250, 6th: $1,000, 7th-2th: $750, 13th-20th: $500. The best female players gets 1st: US $1,500, 2nd: $1,000 and 3rd: $500.

Top standings after seven rounds of play

• Full results are available here

The sensation in this event is the excellent performance of one of Indonesia's young stars, Medina Warda Aulia, a world school champion U11 (Singapore 2008) and bronze-medallist in the World Youth in 2008. In this event she quite sensationally is in place ten after seven rounds, with a score of 5.0/7. In the Jakarta Globe we read:

And in another article:

As you can see in the above table the 13-year-old with a 2035 rating has been playing at full GM strength, with a performance rating approaching 2600. In round eight she has white against GM Dibyendu Barua, a somewhat make-or-break encounter.

The Kartika Chandra four-star Hotel which hosts the participants of the tournament and
will be used as a playing venue for Asian Cities Chess Championship (21-29 of April 2011)

Partcipants, officials and spectators on the opening ceremony

A special musical program, where the dancer symbolises the white pieces

Girls from the Indonesian Chess Federation sing and perform on the opening ceremony. The girls
learnt a special song which motivates players before the games, in a camp for athletes of Indonesia

Indonesian chess-players during the opening ceremony

The President of the Indonesian Chess Federation, Hashim Djojohadikusumo and
the Minister of Youth and Sport Andi Mallarangeng make the first symbolic moves

The officials watch an exhibition blitz game (three minutes time control) between Indonesian WFM Medina Warda Aulia and me. My opponent played better, but I played faster and won on time. The spectators seemed satisfied.

The playing venue

The highest rated Indonesian player, GM Megaranto Susanto, vs Andreas Susanto

Elo favourite GM Merab Gagunashvili from Georgia

GM Cerdar Barus from Indonesia, who won his first five games, played in the
national team at the 2002 Olympiad in Bled, winning the gold medal on board three

Zhang Zhong, Chinese GM who lives in Singapore

Irina is a WGM and has a rating of 2354. She is the current Indonesian women's champion, a member of Indonesian women's team and the winner of the Asian Youth Championships. Beside of chess she also studies English literature at the University.

15-years-old WFM Chelsie Monica Ignesias Sihite from Indonesia is Asean champion U16 (2010)
and repeated champion of Indonesia in different age groups. She also enjoys taking photos.

The hospitality of the organizers knows no bounds: amongst many other things they gave the players an opportunity to visit different restaurants in Jakarta every evening. This time company is gathered in Indian restaurant.

And for relaxation GMs Barua Dibyendu and Zhang Zhong try their skill at pool billiard

Links Official tournament site All games in zipped PGN (the games are in untidy condition but have been preparared for proper publication on TWIC by Mark Crowther Reports in the Jakarta Globe To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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