Indonesian Chess Player Beats Online Grand Master, Causes Backlash

KOMPAS.com – Indonesian online chess newbie Dadang Subur recently caused a stir on cyberspace, after he beat highly ranked chess master Levy Rozman on the Chess.com online gaming platform. But instead of winning accolades, his feat got him banned from the website.

Dadang’s son Ali Akbar said he took on Levy on Tuesday. “My father played a Ranked Match [on Chess.com] before he went to bed,” he recalled to KompasTekno days later on WhatsApp on Thursday, March 4.

“He was just happy that his opponent was ranked as a GM [Grand Master], FM [Fide Master] or IM [International Master], so he had no idea whom he was up against,”. The matchup also seemed natural, as Levy is a Chess.com IM with an ELO of 2,400, while Dadang’s ELO is 2,300.

Using the online handle ‘Dewa_Kipas’, Dadang beat Rozman, who played under the name ‘GothamChess’, in under five minutes. The win did not go unnoticed by chess buffs, including those on a Reddit website subforum dedicated to the game.

Ali pointed out that Dadang, through his account Dewa_Kipas, became attacked by other Chess.com users.

Getting the heat

“The attacks went directly to the inbox of my father’s Chess.com account. They included statements such as ‘erase your account before it is too late’ or ‘you damned cheat’. They also accused [Dadang] of using cheat codes,” he asserted.

“Since they went directly to Chess.com’s inbox, I concluded that [Dadang’s] account was blocked after reports [by Rozman’s fans], many of whom are Twitch users who saw their match on real time.”

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Neither Ali nor Dadang, a former Indonesian professional chess player who was a contender in the country’s annual National Sports Week [PON], reckoned on Levy’s considerable online presence.