<<1982.02.08-03.13. Round Robin 25 rounds. 26 players. Ratings average 2471. Category IX. GM norm 17.5. IM norm 12.5. GM title: Ronald Watson Henley.>The event was a giant tournament in every sense of the words. With 26 players competing, it was the biggest round robin chess tournament after World War II. It also excelled in term of the quality of the participants: 18 GMs, 5 IMs, 2 FMs, and only 1 non-title player. Many familiar faces of the world élite were present: GM Vlastimil Hort, GM Zoltán Ribli, GM Walter Browne, GM Larry Christiansen, GM Gennadi Sosonko, GM Anthony Miles, and GM Florin Gheorghiu. The event was held in about a month at two cities, Solo (aka Surakarta), Central Java, and Denpasar, Bali.
Should a player score a GM norm in this tournament he wouldn’t need another norm elsewhere since the tournament had 25 rounds. According to the then FIDE regulation, to obtain a GM title a player needed to score GM norms in 24 rounds. The tournament belonged to category IX. It required 70% achievement to score a GM norm. Looks easy? 70% of 25 rounds means 17.5 VP. A whopping +10 was required!
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Approaching to the end, the tournament started to take its toll. Many players didn’t have enough energy to push anymore. The avalanche of GM draws was unavoidable. Chandler and Henley [both looking for GM norm(s)] were the exceptions. They still tried their best to win at all cost. Before the penultimate round both had 15.5 VP meaning they couldn’t afford to lose a point in the next rounds.
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Another championship contender Christiansen surprisingly lost to Indonesian GM Herman Suradiradja in the last round.
The tournament had concluded with Browne grabbing the championship trophy. He edged out Henley on the better SB.
The performance of the host players, other than Suradiradja and Jacobus Sampouw, ranged from excellent (Ardiansyah) to acceptable (the rest). The tournament also ran smoothly. The only downside was the name of Benny Kileng nowhere on the participant list. The FM of West Java was arguably one of the country’s best. His Elo was 2395 equaling to Ardiansyah’s as the highest in Indonesia.>
Kibitzing
