Cuban chess player to compete for second prize in Benalmadena Festival

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 28 (ACN) Cuban Carlos Daniel Albornoz will seek his second prize today at the Benalmadena Festival, in Spain, where he was already among the winners of the unusual Chess 960.

The event, held in Malaga, consists of three different modalities of the science game and gathers several contestants with more than 2,600 Elo points.

Albornoz started his road there as fifth in the rapid games segment with 6.5 points in nine rounds, after five wins, three draws and only one loss.

Armenian Karen Grigoryan and Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov took the top spot with 7.5 points, but in that order after the tiebreaker system was applied. Next came Ukrainian Yuriy Kuzubov with seven units.

Then, the 960 Chess competition or also known as Fischer Random Chess, a variant in which the official rules are respected, but the initial order of the pieces is drawn.

Although this type of game does not yet have a world ranking to measure performance, it is gaining followers and some organizers are beginning to include it in their tournaments.

Cuban player made his debut in this modality and achieved a very good second place with seven points out of a possible eight, only ahead of Kuzubov who led with 7.5 points.