While surfing the internet especially looking for chess-related news and info, GiLoCatur incidently went to an
Indonesian chess blog. Among the recent blog entries are about the success of the Indonesian chess team in the recently concluded 27th SEA Games held in Myanmar. The Indonesian chess team managed to win 5 Gold, 4 Silver and 7 Bronze medals, totaling to 16 medals. With these number of medals won, lots of updates and photos can be found in the blog. GiLoCatur is very jealous the same scenario is not happening to the Malaysian chess community. GiLoCatur wonders when Malaysia is going to enjoy this kind of moment in chess.
The statement from the head of PERCASI really impresses GiLoCatur. He said that the best performance should be achieved based on will, survival (fighting) and passion for chess and Red-White, referring to the Indonesian flag.
“Kami tidak akan mengiming-imingi atlet catur junior berprestasi dengan bonus materi atau uang, tetapi akan memperhatikan kelanjutan prestasi mereka dengan membiayainya ke turnamen-turnamen catur Internasional yang levelnya lebih tinggi! Prestasi terbaik harus dicapai berdasarkan kemauan, perjuangan, dan kecintaan terhadap olahraga Catur dan Merah-Putih, bukan karena “disogok” bonus uang atau diiming-imingi hadiah!"
Another interesting update in the Indonesian chess blog is about their young chess players who take part in the World Youth Chess Championship or its acronym WYCC held in UAE. Indonesia is sending ten junior chess players - five boys and five girls to the chess tournament. Only one of them is self-sponsored where the rest is either sponsored by PERCASI, Indonesian chess association, or RIAU chess association.
GiLoCatur is quite familiar with two of the Indonesian chess junior players. Both are WFM Aay Aisyah Anisa and CM Azarya Jodi Setyaki. When GiLoCatur started to know these two Indonesian chess players? The answer is AAG 2012. For those who do not know what AAG stands for, it means Asean Age Group chess tournament. All the three GiLoCatur's children took part in the AAG 2012 which was held in Hue City, Vietnam. Both Aisyah and Azarya played in the U14 category, their respective girls and boys section.
As GiLoCatur remembers, it is in this chess tournament that both of them got their respective title. Unrated, Aisyah was ranked 10th in the standard event. After two straight wins in the first two rounds, she was in the top board in the third round. She stayed on the top board until the final round. She won six consecutive rounds. After the
final round, Aisyah emerged as the champion scoring impressive 8/9 points.
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| Aisyah (left) with red shirt |
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| Aisyah smiling when photo being taken by GiLoCatur |
She could not continue her superb performance in next both
rapid and
blitz events. Our WFM Nur Najiha was the obstacle where Aisyah lost in both events in the second round. (Note: In the standard event, Najiha played in the G20 (Girls Under 20) event.) GiLoCatur managed to have a short chit chat with Aisyah before one of the rounds start.
While Azarya got GiLoCatur's attention when he was among the top boards in the Boys U14 event beside FM Paulo Bersamina of Philipines, Tran Minh Thang of Vietnam and Rohan Ahuja of India. After the final round, Azarya scored 6.5/9 points and was third in the
final ranking. He had the same score with an unrated Vietnamese player and thus was the silver medal winners and both were awarded the CM title. In the
rapid event, Azarya came strong and emerged top. He tied with 6/7 points with Paulo Bersamina. He was fifth place in the nine-round
blitz event.
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| Azarya (right) played against his Filipino opponent, Paulo Bersamina (left) in AAG2012 |
How is the performance of the Indonesia junior chess players in the WYCC? Click
here to find out. And
here to know the results of the Malaysian junior chess players.
