Today’s Daily Telegraph column sees Malcolm Pein digging a little deeper than usual, as he investigates a grave situation.
Malcolm Pein on…A Grave Situation
The first inkling I got of how popular chess is in Indonesia was in 2012, when I came across the results of the Indonesian Gravediggers Championships. The tournament motto was ‘Dig for Victory’.
Today, of all days, an astonishing tale from Indonesia of an alleged cheat, a chess social media pile-on of unprecedented proportions, and a record-breaking chess broadcast.
The lockdown and The Queen’s Gambit-inspired chess-boom have seen the emergence online of chess streamers. Streamers take on all-comers, chat, analyse games and generally entertain an ever-growing audience. The best-known is Hikaru Nakamura, who has acquired over one million followers on Twitch.
Large Gains; Big Games
Last month, IM Levy Rozman, who broadcasts under the handle Gotham Chess, was playing and losing to a Dewa_Kipas from Indonesia, who had gained 1000 points in a month on Chess.com. Many aspects of Rozman’s opponent’s play suggested he was cheating. Rozman called him out on the stream and reported the encounter to Chess.com, whose sophisticated algorithms bore his suspicions out and the Dewa Kipas account was banned.
Soon after, Rozman began receiving thousands of abusive messages, many in Indonesian. It emerged that Dewa_Kipas was the account of a 60-year-old retired tournament player named Dadang Subur. His son’s post on Facebook, claiming his victory over Rozman was legitimate, had gone viral in Indonesia. The episode escalated, until an Indonesian tech company and a businessman put up $21,000 for Subur to take on Indonesia’s top female player IM/WGM Irene Sukander. Sabur lost 3-0 and made some elementary errors, but still collected $7,000.
The match was broadcast on Youtube and smashed the previous record for the number of concurrent viewers for a chess match when it peaked at more than 1.25 million.
I. Sukandar – S. Dadang
Game One
Caro Kann
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 e6 (A typical amateur’s error which condemns the bishop on c8 to passivity. 5…Nf6 or Qc7 are better) 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.0–0 Be7 8.Bf4 0–0 9.Ne5 Ne4?! (Black loses four tempi with this knight in all) 10.f3 Nxe5 11.Bxe5 Nf6 12.Qc2 h6 13.Nd2 Bd6 14.Rae1 Nh5? 15.f4 b6 16.Qd1 Nf6 17.Qf3 Bb7 18.f5 Qc8?? 19.Bxd6 Re8 20.Be5 Ba6 21.Bxf6 gxf6 22.fxe6 Rxe6 23.Bxa6 Qxa6 24.Rxe6 fxe6 1–0
Test Your Strength
Dadang – Sukandar, Game Two
Black to play and win
Highlight the space below this line to reveal the answer.
21…Bd6+ 22.Kg1 Qg3 23.Nxe4 dxe4 24.Qd2 exf3 25.d5 Qh2+ 26.Kf2 Qxg2+ 0–1
