Cuban Dominguez in 17th place in World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship

Cuban Leinier Domínguez reached two wins and three draws during the opening day of the 2016 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship taking place in Doha, capital of Qatar.

In the first of three days dedicated to the rapid modality (15 minutes), Dominguez defeated Argentine Diego Flores before signing peace with Russian Alexander Riazantsev, Dutchman Benjamin Bok and Ukrainian Olexandr Borthyk.

As a colophon he beat Egyptian Bassem Amin to total 3.5 points and now ranks sixteenth among 106 contestants who are led by Ukrainian Anton Korobov, only one with perfect performance who is followed by Armenian Levon Aronian (4.5).

According to www.chess-results.com, Korobov included among his victims super elite players such as Russian Alexander Grischuk, blitz champion a year ago, and Chinese Yangyi Yu.

The news of the day was the win of Georgian Levan Pantsulaia over superstar Magnus Carlsen, last year champion, who surprisingly appears 20th with 3.5 points.

Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi (ranked 17), American Hikaru Nakamura (18) and Frenchman Maxime Vahcier-Lagrave (22) are other well-known figures away from the leaders.

Five more games will be played today and this phase will end on Wednesday, which will give way to the blitz event (three minutes) scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

The women's event, 12 games, is led by Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk, only one who won the four games.