Cerdas Barus wins Telin International
08.04.2011 – He started off with five straight wins, then lost to his colleague GM Eugenio Torre, but fought back to finish as sole winner in this Swiss tournament in Jakarta. What makes Cerdas Barus unique is that he is not only a GM but also deaf. He learnt chess at a late age, and at 50 he remains one of his country's strongest players. Final report.

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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.

Tournament hall at the Telin Chess International in Jakarta

The winner with 7.5/9 points: "amateur" GM Cerdas Barus

Cerdas Barus was born in Karo, North Sumatra, on January 1st 1961. What makes him unique as a chess player is not only he is a GM but he is deaf. He learnt Karo chess, which has different rules, at the late age of 14, but switched to classical chess when his family moved to Medan in 1978. He was really talented and picked it up quicly. His international career began in 1983 as a team member of Medan City team who participated in Asian Cities Championship in Hong Kong then it was followed by Chess Olympiad in Greece a year later. After this Olympiad 1984 he had been practically involved in the most, if not all, of Indonesian important chess events until 2002. Cerdas might recall 2002 as the golden year. In addition to being National Champion, he was also the winner of Hamzah Haz Open Jakarta and the runner-up of Wismilak International. In November he hit his peak on Chess Olympiad held at Bled, Slovenia. Cerdas won a gold medal for the third board after collecting 8.5 VP out of 10 games. The achievement also gave Cerdas the third (the last) GM norm.

Second: GM Merab Gagunashvili GEO, with 7.0/9 points

Third: GM Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam, with 7.0/9 points

Final top standings after nine rounds of play

#	Ti	Player	Nat.	Rtng	Pts	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	GM	Barus Cerdas	INA	2443	7.5	52.0	48.0	44.0
2	GM	Gagunashvili Merab	GEO	2599	7.0	53.5	49.5	44.0
3	GM	Dao Thien Hai	VIE	2507	7.0	53.0	49.5	44.5
4	GM	Torre Eugenio	PHI	2495	7.0	51.5	48.5	45.0
5	IM	Liu Dede	INA	2418	7.0	51.5	47.5	42.5
6	GM	Zhang Zhong	SIN	2592	6.5	52.5	49.0	44.5
7	IM	Irwanto Sadikin	INA	2417	6.5	52.0	48.5	44.5
8	FM	Wahono Awam	INA	2372	6.5	50.5	46.5	42.0
9	IM	Halay Taufik	INA	2346	6.5	49.5	46.0	41.0
10	GM	Megaranto Susanto	INA	2533	6.5	49.0	45.5	41.5
11		Gunawan Johan	INA	2269	6.0	51.0	47.5	42.5
12		Sutarno	INA	2255	6.0	49.0	46.0	42.5
13	GM	Ardiansyah H	INA	2373	6.0	48.0	44.0	40.0
14	GM	Barua Dibyendu	IND	2468	6.0	47.0	47.0	42.0
15	IM	Sitanggang Salor	INA	2383	6.0	46.5	43.0	39.0
16		Zulkhairi	INA	2281	6.0	45.5	42.0	38.0
17	IM	Purnama Tirta Chandra	INA	2404	6.0	43.5	43.5	39.0
18		Pitra Andika	INA	2303	6.0	43.5	40.5	37.0
19	FM	Novita Anjas	INA	2344	6.0	41.5	39.0	35.0
20		Prayitno Sugeng	INA	2348	5.5	47.5	44.5	40.0
21	FM	Mahmud Syarif	INA	2315	5.5	47.5	43.5	39.0
22	FM	Firdaus Maksum	INA	2269	5.5	47.5	43.5	39.0
23		Ediyanto	INA	2355	5.5	45.0	42.0	38.5
24	FM	Hamdani Rudin	INA	2368	5.5	43.5	40.5	37.0
25		Achmad Basofi	INA	2133	5.5	43.0	40.0	36.0
26	FM	Askali Nurdin	INA	2312	5.5	43.0	39.5	35.0
27		Sean Winshand Cuhendi	INA	1945	5.5	42.0	39.5	36.0
28	FM	Tjhin Irawan	INA	2345	5.5	41.0	38.0	34.0
29	IM	Suhendra Andi Supardi	INA	2230	5.5	40.5	38.0	34.5
30		Aris T.L.S.	INA	2232	5.5	39.0	39.0	35.5
31	WGM	Karlovich Anastazia	UKR	2204	5.5	36.0	35.0	31.5
32	WFM	Medina Warda Aulia	INA	2035	5.0	52.0	47.5	42.5

Full results are available here

The table shows the results of players who scored 5.5/7 or higher, plus the top result of players with 5.0/7. We included this to inform our readers on progress of WFM Warda Aulia Medina, who featured prominently in our previous report. Unfortunately this very talented 13-year-old lost her last two games, against GM Dibyendu Barua of India and FM Irawan Tjhin of Indonesia (rated 2345). We do not have the games of the final rounds yet, but the tournament bulleting gives us an inkling of what transpired in round eight:

Persaingan para pecatur andal memang sayang untuk dilewatkan, namun perkembangan pecatur muda MFW Medina Warda Aulia (2035) juga pantas diikuti. Walau harus mengakui kehebatan GM Dibyendu Barua (2468) di babak kedelapan, tapi Medina paling tidak berhasil belajar banyak dari kekalahannya.

Nicely put, right. Anyway, we are sure to report on this very interesting young lady again soon.

Round one, with Warda Aulia playing black against IM Ronny Gunawan, rated 2420,
who played 1.b4 to confuse the child. Guess who got punished – in 42 moves.

In round five Warda Aulia faced GM Eugenio Torre, who finished the event in 2-5 place

She had good drawing chances at move 17, was essentially lost at move 20 but kept
the experience grandmaster busy for 52 moves, with drawing chances again at move 49.