Chees: Indonesian Team Ready for Chess Olympics

Jakarta (Antara) - Indonesia's chess team is ready for the Chess Olympics scheduled in Tromos, Norway, from August 1 to 15, an All Indonesia Chess Association (Percasi) official said here, Saturday. Indonesia will send a men's and women's team comprising five players each to the games, Kristianus Liem, the chairman of Percasi's performance affairs, said. The players had improved a lot, so he was optimistic they could improve their rankings from what they had achieved in the last Chess Olympics in Istanbul, Turkey, two years ago, he said. "The progress shown by the players has been very good, especially Medina and Irene, and we hope we can break into the group of the world¿s top 20 players from 181 participating countries," he said. The Indonesian women's team has so far been ranked 24th while the men's team is ranked 73rd . At present, the players are playing trial matches in Pardubice Chess Festival in the Czech Republic until Sunday before leaving for Tromso. The trials in Europe, as well as training under foreign coaches, were a part of the strategy to challenge the best players at the championship, he said. "Every time we pair up abroad we also study the style of our opponents and see their strengths and weaknesses using our database. We have so far collected more than six million matches," he said. (*)