Eyleen Ríos López

Leinier Domínguez maintained an excellent 11th place spot confirming his number one position in Latin America, while his teammates Lázaro Bruzón and Yuniesky Quesada experienced declines in the recently published world chess rankings.

Cuban grand master, Leinier Domínguez maintains 11th place in the world chess ranking. Photo: Mónica Ramírez.

There were no changes to Domínguez’s 2,750 Elo score as a result of another month with out competing, before the World Chess Olympics in Tromso, where he will play Cuba’s first game of the tournament.

The period brought less fortune for Bruzón, participating in a tour of four U.S. cities which resulted in him seceding 32 points, ending with a score of 2,664 and falling 30 places to take 82nd position in the world.

Yuniesky lost six points, ending with a total of 2,649, which put him out of the top 100, ranking 118th, although he remains third in Cuba above Isam Ortiz who went from 2,600 to 2,603 points.

However, it is worth clarifying that Ortiz’s latest score does not include his poor performance in the Latin American Championship, which concluded July 31 in Linares, where he lost 9.3 points.

Yuri González took 5th place in the national rankings with a score of 2,550, an increase of four places since June 2013, and will play as a reserve for the Cuban team in the World Chess Olympics in Norway.

Leading the women, once again were Lisandra Ordaz with a score of 2,345 points, Yaniet Marrero (2,324) and Yanira Vigoa (2,317), all maintaining identical scores to those they achieved in last year’s world rankings.

With lower coefficients, Maritza Arribas (2,291) and Sulennis Piña (2,270) fell 17 and 47 places respectively.

By countries, Cuba took 19th place (2,583) on the list dominated by Russia (2,745), Ukraine (2,695) and China (2,686), with the highest positions in the top ten held by Norwegian, Magnus Carlsen (2,877) and Armenian, Levon Aronian (2,805).