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Tirta dominates Nolte at grandmaster tournament
Tirta Chandra Purnama clinched his second win at the Japfa Grandmaster Tournament 2014 with a convincing performance against Rolando Nolte of the Philippines on Tuesday
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irta Chandra Purnama clinched his second win at the Japfa Grandmaster Tournament 2014 with a convincing performance against Rolando Nolte of the Philippines on Tuesday.
The fourth round match was Tirta's second win following two opening defeats to Suat Atalik of Turkey and Nguyen Huyn Minh Huy of Vietnam.
'I was really disappointed that I lost points early on. I tried to forget it [in this match],' Tirta said.
With the tournament to play nine rounds, the 27-year-old Indonesian still harbors hopes of a 6.5 point requirement for a grandmaster (GM) norm. 'Hopefully, I can carry on with my best performance,' he said.
His encounter with Nolte in the fourth round saw some of his best moves to date.
Tirta promptly forced his opponent onto the defense after he managed to break in with his knight on his 15th move.
Nolte tried to counter by swapping some pieces in later moves but it was to no avail and he ended up being a pawn down.
The queen's maneuver on the 29th move allowed Tirta more space to control with his a-file pawn unstoppably marching for promotion.
'The game was up for Nolte when Tirta controlled the a-8 square with his queen,' said chess observer Hendry Jamal.
A few moves later, Nolte had no choice but to shake Tirta's hand in acknowledgement.
'Nolte slipped up early in the game by allowing my knight's push. I held an advantage after that, although it was not easy to develop a winning position,' Tirta said.
In other games, Muhammad Lutfi Ali and Farid Firmansyah failed to hold up against more experienced fellow Indonesians.
Lutfi lost to GM Cerdas Barus in 40 moves of an Italian game. Farid was two pawns down in the endgame against Danny Juswanto, which led to the former's downfall in 39 moves.
Turkey's Suat Atalik held an advantage of a bishop over Vietnam's Nguyen but failed to convert it into a victory.
Top seed GM Sergei Tiviakov of the Netherlands and Kirill Kuderinov agreed to draw after playing 45 moves of a Spanish game.
The fifth round games were underway until late in the evening.
In the women's chess match, Ticia Gara of Hungary fought back to beat Medina Warda Aulia to level the score at 1-1. The duo must play another four rounds.
The Japfa Chess Festival is contesting 14 categories of competition with the remaining 12 being competed only among local players.
