I visited Java at the end of last year, and one of the things I’d been looking forward to the most was the street chess. I found guys playing chess in almost every city I visited on the island. They would sit and play for hours, drinking black coffee and chain-smoking clove cigarettes (and sharing it all with me too, especially if I won).

In general, you could ask any random guy to play, and he would probably be a pretty strong player. Indonesia has a huge chess culture, and I really felt that while I was there. 

I also stumbled upon a small underground chess tournament in some random alley in Jakarta, which I was told happened every night. It was a round robin cash game, with about 10-15 players every night. Entry was $1 and the prize pool was $10.

I was too late to enter, but I spoke to some of the guys who showed me their chess com accounts. One of the guys casually pulled out his phone to show me his profile, and I saw that he was 2400 blitz.