Cuban GM Dominguez finishes second in Dortmund Chess

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 18 (acn) Drawing in the last round with the champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave left Cuban Leinier Dominguez in second seat in the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, in Germany.

The game was extended for 45 moves of a Grunfeld defense with Leinier (2713 Elo points) with white pieces against the Frenchman (2798), who totaled 5.5 units of possible seven and was unreachable monarch since the day before.
That day he beat Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov (2706), and ended with a gain of 13 Elo points, and now virtually appears second in the world ranking with 2 810.8 units.
Leinier also had a good tournament where he totaled four points with a win and six draws, and better tiebreak than other players with his same amount, gaining thus seven units to his ranking.
Russian Vladimir Kramnik (2812) and US Fabiano Caruana (2810), third and fourth, in that order, also finished with four points.
Kramnik, 10-time champion of this event, was less efficient this time and although he did not lose, could only reach one win over his compatriot Evgeny Najer (2687).
Caruana was seeking to reedit the reigns of 2014 and 2015, and also led in 2012, but he lost in the first round to Vachier and then accumulated too many draws (4) that could not be compensated with wins over Najer and local Rainer Buchmann (2653).
The event, held since 1973, involved eight elite players and was the main focus of a festival that also featured an Open tournament.
Final standings: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA / 5.5 points), Leinier Dominguez (CUB / 4), Vladimir Kramnik (RUS / 4), Fabiano Caruana (USA / 4), Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (GER / 3.5 ), Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR / 3.5), Evgeny Najer (RUS / 2), Rainer Buchmann (GER / 1.5).