Havana/The unexpected defeat with which Carlos Daniel Albornoz – the great favorite of Cuban chess – inaugurated the National Championship predicts a very different tournament from last year, dominated by young absent figures this 2025. Now is Juan Borges, champion in 1987 and 1993, who He achieved the first victory.
National Champion in 2019 and 2020, Albornoz has an unexpected advantage: the absence of the current national leader, Luis Ernesto Quesada, missing in the tournament for private reasons. Granma He gave no more explanations of this absence, nor of the other two great rivals of the Camagüeyano – it was Almeida and Elier Miranda – although on other occasions these discrete exits have been the prelude to a casualty announcement to play for federations of another country.
The Diario of the Communist Party gives clues of some tension between the National Chess Federation and the absent players. “Only Almeida had communicated his will not to participate, and prepare for next year,” said National Commissioner Carlos Rivero. “Those problems (those of Miranda and Quesada) were unknown to the Federation.”
“Each case will be analyzed overall with the High Performance Directorate of INDER”
“Each case will be analyzed overall to the High Performance Directorate of the INDER,” said another official medium. Without participation in this tournament, a champion cannot aspire to be part of the national team that participates in Olympics and other competitions, Rivero warned.
The road to the throne – and despite the fiasco on Wednesday – is practically clear, several analysts coincide, provided that “minimizes mistakes.”
Playing with White, Borges held against Albornoz a long game of 50 sets. According to Rodney Pérez, coach of the Male Olympic team, the Camagüeyano “committed inaccuracies” that cost him the triumph against an adversary of experienced leftover. For specialists present in the competition, failure is a call for attention for the young chess player, who culminated a year of victories both in Cuba and abroad.
Albornoz, in fact, has just won the Blitz championship – of lightning games – with a vertiginous closure of four consecutive victories at the Ciego de Ávila hotel, where the national tournament is also celebrated. In that contest, which won in 2020 and 2022 – sueinier Domínguez, who triumphed two years – also remained on the podium Ríder Díaz and Santiago José Avelino Álvarez.
31 competitors will participate in the National Championship; Of them, five are great teachers
31 competitors will participate in the National Championship; Of these, five are great teachers. Among the notable names are Villaclareño Hermes Espinosa, the national youth champion Daniel Hidalgo – which debuts in this tournament -, in addition to Dylan Berdayes and Cristian Vitier, both with technical capacity to defeat Albornoz and take the national title.
This year the Federation decided not to renew the controversial invitation that, last championship, sent to the emigrated Cuban chess. Then, the ruling party invited those who wanted the National whenever they had maintained a “respectful relationship” with the regime and were not affiliated with other federations. No one acceptedbut the reactions did not miss.
The Cuban teacher Lázaro Bruzón rebuked the ruling party for arriving the right to rule out or admit chess players in the competition based on his “respect” to the regime. In a direct transmission, he said he did not plan to attend.
However, the great absent of the contest was, without a doubt, Leinier Domínguez. The ruling had made a proviso with the great teacher, who lives in the US and represents the federation of that country, and announced that he considered it “eligible” to enter the Cuban championship.
“But Bruz, who has been disrespectful with the Federation and the Inder, does not believe he is interested in doing it,” said the institution. Dominguez, in one of the best moments of his career worldwide, did not pronounce on the invitation.
