Cuban GM Dominguez makes it to third round in World Chess Cup

Cuban Leinier Dominguez drew and advanced to the third round of the World Chess Cup, held in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan.

Leinier (2736 Elo points) completed thus a good performance by beating 1.5-0.5 Armenian Hrant Melkumyan ( 2633) in the two classic games.

The Caribbean player drew in 32 moves of a Catalan opening guaranteeing thus his presence in a phase where he will face the winner of the match between English Michael Adams (2740) and Czech Victor Laznicka (2665), which needs to be defined in tiebreak.

The other Cuban Lazaro Bruzon (2659) had a very difficult mission and was forced to win, because he had lost the first game against Russian Vladimir Kramnik (2777).

But he couldn't beat the tough rival despite having some advantage at some point of the game which ended in draw in 44 moves of a Spanish opening, being thus eliminated 0.5-1.5.

Besides Leinier and Kramnik, the list of the other players a lready qualified to the next round includes Bulgarian Veselin Topalov (2816), American Wesley So (2779), Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2731) and Hungary's Peter Leko (2 714) among others.

Peruvian Julio Granda (2663) also remains in competition by easily beating 2-0 Chilean Cristobal Henriquez (2511), hero of the first round by sending home Israeli Boris Gelfand (2741).