Havana, November 28 (JIT) -- Villaclareños Ermes Espinosa and Elier Miranda dawned today with Cuba's best performances in the Panama 2023 Ibero-American Absolute Chess Championship, which is led by Chile's Cristobal Henriquez with successes in his four appearances.

Ermes and Elier have 3.5 units and occupy positions four and five, in that order. With similar accumulated and better tiebreakers are Peru's Diego Saúl Flores (second place), Argentina's Sandro Mareco (third) and Spain's José Fernando Cuenca (sixth).

In his most recent foray, Ermes made peace with Mareco, while the current champion of the Island defeated Ecuador's Anderson Esmeraldas. In the same round, Henriquez defeated Cuba's Omar Almeida, who remained in eighth place with three scores.

Cubans Dylan Berdayes, Michel Alejandro Díaz and Yoilant Rodríguez also have three points, which guarantee them the 10th, 25th and 30th places, respectively.

Several of the best exponents of the island are also participating in the competition, among them Lisandra Ordaz, the best performer so far with 2.5 points and ranked 44th among the 190 aspirants to the throne. Roxángel Obregón (67th place), Yoana González (70th) and Maritza Arribas (80th) have two points each.

Today is the fifth round with interesting duels, such as those between Elier and Flores, Ermes against Cuenca and Henríquez against Mareco.

The tournament of classical games was scheduled for nine rounds until next December 2, but as part of the general program a Blitz tournament was included with actions this Tuesday.