Once again, in his extensive sports career, the Cuban chess player Omar Almeida (2514) will take on two consecutive international events as the first or second in the initial ranking. Starting today he will begin his performance as the number two seed in the Open group of the Capablanca International Memorial, in Havana, and a few days ago he enjoyed being number one in the Mi Veracruz National Championship (First Force section), in Mexico, where he finished in second position, with 4.5 points, thanks to three successes and the same number of armistices.
In conversation with Rebel Youth, Almeida assured that the contest in Veracruz was not so strong, but when not many players intervened, this caused the pairings to be a little more complex from the second or third round, with the presence of six Grand Masters (GM) and several International Masters (IM). He played with a lot of caution, calmness, without forcing the games, and in the end he won a point for his Elo and achieved three victories and draws against his countryman, Elier Miranda from Villa Clara (champion of the fair), and the hosts Gilberto Hernández and Sion Galaviz , a talented IM who in the coming years should become GM.
Regarding his imminent participation in the Internacional Capablanca said that it will be a very demanding competition, in which each match must be played very carefully, risk as little as possible and take advantage of opportunities when he reaches a good position, while his expectations are high. , as he wants to be at least among the top three.
The Havana native preferred not to mention no opponent that could hinder his objectives, since, in his words, any rival is capable of playing an excellent game. and win, even more so if the day is not the best, chess-wise. Yes indeed, He acknowledged that some of the players who will participate have beaten him at least once, and emphasized that he must play with caution against his teammates on the national preselection, who, like him, are fighting to be included in the Olympic team with a view to the world championship in this year, in Hungary. He also referred to the good level of the Canadian Bator Sambuev, the Frenchman Gabriel Flom and his friend, the Spanish Pepe Cuenca.
He recalled that this tournament has been very good for him historically, since from 2014 to 2019 he had not lost a game. His first defeat in that period occurred against IM Arnaldo Fernández de la Vara from Holguín, monarch of the edition five years ago.
«Almost always being the first or second Elo is more demanding because you have, almost from the beginning, the players from the middle of the table upwards. This version has the characteristic that it will be an accelerated Swiss tournament, four or five rounds are accelerated, and then it will be normal. This Capablanca, as I told you before, is very important in the aspirations of the Cubans who are looking for positions in the team that will be in the Budapest Olympics.
«If I can dominate the Open group it would be excellent, but if I place on the podium I also see it as a very good performance. The fact of becoming champion often does not depend on oneself, but also on the tiebreaker system, on whether the opponents score more points than the others, that is, there are a series of factors that determine the final placement. I really focus my ambitions more on the Elo coefficient; If I gain Elo, it was already an outstanding result for me. “I see it as a victory, regardless of where I end up,” he explained.
