Three Cubans to Chess World Cup

With the spots won this weekend by the Grand Masters Lázaro Bruzón and Yusnel Bacallao Cuba has three players in the Chess World Cup scheduled in Tbilisi, Georgia, September 2-28 this year.

Bruzón and Bacallao earned their chance at the Continental Championship recently finished at the Colombian city of Medellín. The joined Yuri González who had previously assured his place with an excellent performance at the Zonal Championship of San Salvador and he will be the third Cuban player in the World Cup.

Cuba took five chess players to the previous world cup with venue in Baku 2015: Bruzón, Leinier Domínguez, Ermes Espinosa, Isán Ortiz, and Yuniesky Quesada. This was a participation record for Cuba, but this time the number of players fell short, although in the Colombian regional competition six spots to the world championship were given and not four as it was announced in a beginning.

Although our players could not win, they were benefitted because two of the players ahead of them, the Peruvian Jorge Cori and Emilio Córdova, already had their tickets for the world championship.

Despite the drop in quantity and especially quality, the contestants this time are within what was expected, because although it came as a surprise that Bacallao displaced Isán, he is the current domestic champion, and who’s best done it in the last months.

The absence of Leinier and Yuniesky will be tangible, and Bruzón will have to carry a great burden of responsibility to at least make it to the second round of the tournament, as he did two years ago. Nevertheless, he is a little further in the world ranking now, and his opening match will probably be more complicated.

There’s plenty of time before the world championship, and for the time being little is known of the participation of these players in international events, regrettably, hence the coming months will have a hard training at home.