I

ndonesia’s first chess grand master, GM Herman Suradiradja, passed away on Monday.

Herman was a member of the Indonesian team at the Chess Olympiad in Havana in 1966. He earned his GM title in 1978 after he won the tournament in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and completed his second norm, according to the World Chess Federation website, fide.com.

Herman reached his peak performance in Bulgaria, where he received all of his norms. The first norm was at Primorsko in 1977. Herman was the third in Asia after Philippines duo Eugenio Torre and Rosendo Balinas Jr.

Kristianus Liem, Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi) official, remembered Herman as a die-hard chess enthusiast.

“Chess kept him alive,” Kristianus told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

“At the end of last year we met at a tournament. I knew he wasn’t well and could not drive [the car] himself. But, when we talked, he said that he pushed himself to drive for the tournament,” he added.