Havana, May 13 (RHC) --The third place of Luis Ernesto Quesada in the Elite group and the leadership of Michel Alejandro Díaz and Dagoberto Ibáñez in the Open and the Senior placed Cuba with prizes this Friday in the Capablanca in Memoriam international chess tournament.
The event closed its curtains at the Habana Libre Hotel, in the capital's Vedado district, and the best performance for the island in its main section was by Luis Ernesto, who came back after the second half and finished with 5.5 points out of a possible nine.
His last game ended in a draw against Cuban Omar Almeida and that result was enough to consolidate his place in the medalists' table behind Denmark's Jonas Bjerre (7 points) and Brazil's Alexandr Fier (6.5).
The European scored the only win of the final round when he beat Germany's Rasmus Svane to become the second Dane in the history of the Capablanca to win a main group. The first was Bert Larsen in the 1967 edition.
Fier was content with quick draws in the bye against Cuba's Elier Miranda and almost gave up the first place in the strongest section of the event.
The medalists were followed by four men who owned 4.5 stripes and had to go to the tie-breaker to place them from fourth to seventh: Svane, Spain's Eduardo Iturrizaga, India's Raunak Sadhwani and Cuba's Carlos Daniel Albornoz.
Completing the ranking were Almeida, with three points, and Lelys Martinez and Elier, with 2.5 points.
In the Open segment there was a tie of eight points out of a possible 10 among the three winners, but it was the Tunero Michel Alejandro Diaz who stood out at the top.
In addition to leaving Ermes Espinosa from Villaclare in silver and Bator Sambuev from Canada in bronze, the eastern player celebrated his second Grandmaster title.
In the Senior category, where all those involved were over 60 years of age, Dagoberto Ibañez from the capital won the gold by completing 7.5 points out of nine.
Two other locals, Humberto Pecorelli and Pedro Rodriguez, completed the podium in that order with 6.5 points each.
