Cuban Chess with a Bright Future

Everything indicates that the future of Cuban chess is on the right track, if we take into account the recent performance of a group of inexperienced players at the U-16 World Olympiad held in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, where they ranked 12^th among 34 teams from 23 nations.

The four Cuban members played their first major international test and had to face the nine rounds without rest, with a positive balance at the end of five matches won and four lost, to total 10 points.

The Caribbean team were only half a point away from being included among the 10 best teams in the competition, played by the Swiss system.

According to what the captain and head coach of Cubans, Rodney Pérez, declared from the headquarters, everyone gave their best.

The most outstanding was the defender of the first board, FIDE Master Daniel Hidalgo, leader of the national ranking of the category, by adding five out of nine points in his complex place in the competition, where he obviously met the best of each team.

Also, Leduard González, and Greter Caballero added 4.5 units for Cuba and José Alejandro Izquierdo contributed four points as the third board.

Let’s remember that Cuba attended the event via a formal invitation from FIDE due to the good results of lower categories in the recent past, but this meant that the number of competitors was the minimum of four and there were no reservations, so there was no rest for our players, in a tournament that did not have a day off either.

The competition was won by Turkey Red team, the first team of that country, which won the gold medal with a perfect score of 18 points, while Uzbekistan deserved the silver medal with 15 points, two more than Azerbaijan I, bronze winner.

For our boys, it’s undoubtedly a great incentive to be able to compete at this level at such an early age, and a motivation to stay connected to chess, since they showed that they can achieve important results if they prepare and compete well.

Such opportunity was in fact the first historical participation of Cuba, it can mark a turning point for Cuba chess players, who usually do not face international games until older ages.

For them, too, the fact of being the spearhead of Cuba in these contests was an extra pressure, because the invitation had to be matched with a good competitive result.

Hopefully FIDE was satisfied enough with the performance to repeat the invitation in the near future, because in our current economic situation it is very difficult to bear the costs on our own tournament.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff