Havana, August 4 (JIT) - Cuban Grandmaster (GM) Carlos Daniel Albonoz repeated a draw against Egyptian Bassem Amin and this Friday, in the rapid games, will seek to advance to the third round of the open session of the Azerbaijan Fide World Cup 2023.
The grandmaster from Camagüey led the white pieces during 31 moves of a Ruy Lopez Opening in which he always kept the initiative. He even held interesting positions after sacrificing a pawn to seek greater activity with his forces, but finally failed to tilt his opponent's king.
"That kind of positions he likes, he feels very comfortable in those approaches. He had a slight advantage during the whole game," explained coach Rodney Perez, who followed the match via internet.
"Then, in a key moment, he spent a lot of time trying to find the best way to win and did not have a clear idea. That's why he accepted the draw that had been proposed to him", added the strategist.
The definition was reserved for the tiebreaker games, which will begin with the 25-minute games.
"He faces an opponent who has had more than 2,700 Elo points, so the draw in the classical games is a very good result. This Friday anything can happen, but Albornoz is in a positive mood and told us that he feels good", acknowledged the head of the men's national teams.
In the women's segment, Lisandra Ordaz gave in with black figures against the Russian favorite Aleksandra Goryachkina in 65 moves of a Queen's Gambit, which sentenced the victory of the Eurasian in the match with a score of 1.5-0.5 units.
"She didn't come out of the opening badly. In a brave way she sacrificed a pawn at a certain moment to be quite balanced," Rodney commented on the match in which the player from Pinar del Río faced the occupant of the second place in the women's world ranking.
"They reached a rook endgame that should have been a draw, but Lisandra was a bit rushed with time and her opponent had that in her favor to force the victory," he summarized.
The round-robin player repeated this time her performance from the Sochi 2021 edition, when she also lost in the second round to a Russian player.
