Leinier excelling in chess

THE excellent win of 30 units defined by his standard of play at the Thessalonica Grand Prix took Cuban Grandmaster Leinier Domínguez to 13th place in the world ranking revised by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

This position, unprecedented for a Latin American player, is the result of his 2,757 points won, a total equally unprecedented for the region, with which Domínguez moved up from his 20th place in December 2012, at 2,734.

In Greece, where he confronted a number of the world’s finest players, Leinier won six games, tied four and lost just once, with a magnificent result of 11 units.

To have an idea of Leinier’s solid performance, suffice it to say that in October 2001 he was included for the first time among the 100 best chess players in the world, with 2,596 points, having become a grandmaster the year before in the Linares Open Championship. His vertiginous ascent continued, as in July 2008 he was welcomed into the 2,700 club, in which he has constantly remained.

Leinier’s ascent by 10 places is the most significant one in the latest FIDE ranking for the month of July.

The world ranking is headed by Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, with 2,862 Elo points, followed by Armenian Levon Aronian (2,813) and Italian Fabiano Caruana (2,796).

Russian Vladimir Kramnik dropped to fourth, given that he lost 19 units and accumulated 2,784, ahead of his compatriots Alexander Grischuk (2,780) and Sergey Karjakin (2,776).

Completing the vanguard is U.S. Hikaru Nakamura (2,775); Indian world champion Viswanathan Anand (2,775), who dropped tour places; Israeli Boris Gelfand (2,773) and Bulgarian Veselin Topalov (2,767).