Indonesia beaten by Israel at Olympiad

JAKARTA: After snatching surprising draws over Bulgaria and England, Indonesia's men's chess team was stunned by Israel Wednesday in its first defeat in four rounds at the Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy.

GM Utut Adianto, who suffered a loss to GM Michael Adams in Indonesia's 2-2 draw with England, and Anjas Novita gave the team half a point each but GM Susanto Megaranto and FM Hamdani Rudin lost their games to hand Israel a 3-1 victory, according to a release here.

The team, seeded 45th, collected one win, two draws and one loss to languish in 56th place among around 150 participating countries.

Their women compatriots also recorded 1-2-1 to stay in 37th place. The 68th seed drew with 36th seed Croatia 1.5-1.5 in the fourth round Wednesday for a back-to-back even result following their draw against 28th seed Argentina in the third round.

The 37th Chess Olympiad is being played over 13 rounds until June 4th. -- JP