The Cuban team tied this Wednesday 2-2 with its similar team from Spain in the sixth round of the 44th Open section Olympiad of Chess, based in the city of Chennai, in the Indiaan event in which the island’s women’s team achieved a victory against Colombia.
Made up only of men, the cast led by coach Rodney Pérez remains undefeated in the open competition of 188 teams, after the six initial rounds were held, according to review the agency Latin Press (PL).
The Cubans agreed to peace with the Spanish in all duels. The Grand Masters (GM) Yasser Quesada, Carlos Daniel Albornoz, Luis Ernesto Quesada and Omar Almeida saw action on the Island, who signed the tables with their Iberian counterparts Alexéi Shirov, David Antón Guijarro, Jaime Santos and Eduardo Iturrizaga, respectively.
In this way, Cuba now occupies eighth place in the open classification with 10 points, and is making a remarkable performance so far, above the forecasts of the experts and what is estimated based on its collective Elo.
#Cuba closes the first half of the Olympiad well #Chess This Thursday will be rest and on Friday during the seventh round the men will face India 2 and the girls will face Mongolia. #ChessOlympiad2022 https://t.co/sZ0uQDKuhg pic.twitter.com/qSSdDCGUjB
— JIT Cuban Sport (@jit_digital) August 3, 2022
Among the other duels of the contest on this day, the Armenian team beat India 2 2.5-1.5 and remained the only leader of the ranking. Also, the United States outscored Iran 2.5-1.5; Serbia beat Poland 2.5-1.5; Netherlands 2.5-1.5 to Georgia, while Uzbekistan split 2-2 with India 1 and England and Austria also drew.
Meanwhile, in the women’s competition, the Cubans won Colombia by 2.5 to 1.5 units, thanks to the triumphs of Yerisbel Miranda and the national champion Yaniela Forgas, joined by Lisandra Ordaz on the first board, while Ineymig Hernández fell at the fourth table.
With this result, the Cuban female cast rose to 20th place in the category with nine units, and is now the best placed Latin American team in the country classification.
This Thursday will be the rest day in the tournament and on Friday the seventh round will take place, in which the Cubans will face the second team from India, a team full of talented young people who have been occupying leading positions. In turn, the girls will have as rivals the representation of Mongolia.
This Chess Olympiad is played using the Swiss system with 11 rounds and each team gets two points for winning a duel, one unit for each tie and none for losing. The team with the most points at the end of the eleventh round will be the champion.
The order by federations is classified based on the sum of the results in the Open and Women’s Section. First place in the open section wins the Hamilton-Russel Cup and in the women’s section the Vera Menchik Cup. The combined classification awards the Nona Gaprindashvili Trophy.
