T

he US$100,000 Indonesia Open Chess Championship ended in Jakarta on Thursday with the favorites living up to expectations.

Grandmaster (GM) Aleksey Dreev, who was seeded third, came out as the winner, prevailing over first seed GM Alexander Moiseenko, who finished in second place, and second seed GM Nigel Short, who had to settle for third.

Dreev of Russia played to a stalemate against GM GN Gopal of India in the last round of the tournament at Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel in Central Jakarta. But picking up the half point on the draw was enough for him to seal overall victory with a total of 8.5 points.

He was a point ahead of his two rivals, each recording 7.5 points along with other seven players. The Ukraine grandmaster Moiseenko placed ahead of Short of England overall due to tiebreaker calculations.

It was a late run up the ladder by Short, the two-time world championship challenger, who was paired against Moiseenko on Thursday.

He was a point behind Moiseenko going into the game. Knowing that only a win would put him in the top three, Short went on the offensive from the start.

In the middlegame, he built an advantage after forcing Moiseenko to swap a rook with a knight on the 33rd move. Ten moves later, the advantage was clear for Short with his active rook against Moiseenko's lame knight.

A final decisive move in the endgame with his rook gave a clear path to pawn promotion and Moiseenko conceded.

For Dreev, the title marked a great accomplishment, as he finished in seventh place in the first Indonesia Open in 2011.

Dreev's victory was extra sweet, as during the tournament he avenged his 2011 loss to Indonesia's top player GM Susanto Megaranto, beating him in the fourth round.

It was Susanto's only loss in the tournament, which left him in 18th place overall with 7 points, tied with 10 players, including the veteran Indonesian grandmaster, Ardiansyah.

'It's a tough tournament with strong players. I'm quite satisfied with the results. I'm happy that I could force stalemate when playing with black,' Susanto said.

Another consolation for local fans was that, as team manager Kristianus Liem said, Indonesian players Moh. Ervan, Masruri Rahman and Chelsie Monica Sihite claimed International Master (IM) norm, a step to attaining IM title.