Cuba without GM Leinier Dominguez for World Olympiad

Cuban chess player and Grand Master Leinier Dominguez was temporarily dismissed from the Cuban national team to represent the island in the 43rd next edition of the World Olympiad in the city of Batumi, Georgia, from September 23 to October 6, 2018, said Cuban national chess commissioner Carlos Rivero here today.

'When he decides to come back to Cuba we will evaluate his reinsertion to the national team, starting from the established rules in the sport,' Rivero said in a press release by the Cuban National Chess Federation that was read and published during the official presentation of the 53rd edition of International Jose Raul Capablanca in Memoriam.

This will be the second consecutive year Dominguez is absent from the national team's list, since in 2017 he asked permission not to participate in Cuban tournaments for a non-specified period of time.

At that time the chess player born in Güines, 60 kilometers southeast of this capital, resided outside the country and worked as a commentator on the website Chess24.

The Adolfo Luque Hall of the Latin American Stadium was the place where the Elite Group to compete at the Capablanca International was revealed, led by US Grand Master (GM) Samuel Shankland, owner of the 70th place in the world ranking with .2671 Elo points.

Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon, his Russian counterparts Alexey Dreev and Aleksandr Rakhmanov, Spanish David Anton, and the Venezuelan Eduardo Iturrizaga will also participate.

The tournament will begin on Tuesday, May 8, at the Embajadores Hall of the Habana Libre Hotel and will hold its first round the following day, starting at three o'clock in the afternoon.