Spanish-speaking chess strongly adds to the tremendous wave of elite online tournaments with the first Ibero-American in the flash mode (three minutes, plus two seconds for each movement). It is held from today until July 5 on Chess24.com with 108 participants from the 23 countries that make up the Ibero-American Federation. Among them, all the best except the Cuban Leinier Domnguez, who now plays for the US, and the Peruvian Julio Granda, almost retired.

If the only criteria were the numbers of the world lightning ranking, the favorites would be the Peruvian Jos Eduardo Martnez Alcntara (21 years old, 48th in the world), the Argentine Federico Prez Ponsa (26, 61) and the Spanish Alexi Shrov (47, 88) ). But that list is the least reliable of the three because since its creation in 2012, not enough tournaments have been played for it to be consolidated.

This encourages to open the range of favorites, adding to those who are among the hundred best in the world in rapids, whose classification is somewhat more reliable but not entirely: the Spanish David Antn (24, 29), the Paraguayan Neuris Delgado (38, 70) and the also Spanish Paco Vallejo (37, 86); Martnez Alcntara, 99th, is also on that list. And in the slow games (classic mode), the most consolidated, Vallejo (30) and Antn (36) reappear, and the Peruvian Jorge Cori (24, 93) appears.

enlarge photo

But whoever wants to minimize the risk of failing the forecast will have to add more names: the Cuban Lzaro Bruzn; Spaniards Manuel Prez Candelario, Ivn Salgado, Miguel Santos and Jaime Santos; Argentines Alan Pichot and Sandro Mareco; and Venezuelan Eduardo Iturrizaga, Paraguayan Axel Bachmann have a track record that enables them to win a tournament as tough as this one. 28 women participate, but there will be no female champion title; The strongest in theory are the Peruvian Deysi Cori, the Spanish Sabrina Vega and Marta Garca, the Cuban Lisandra Ordaz and the Argentine Carolina Lujn.

Starting today (Monday) and until June 30, the preliminary phase (duels for the best of four games), the first (six) and second (eight) rounds, and the eighth finals (ten) are played. The eight classified will face each other in the decisive playoffs from July 1 to 5. The first 20 of the initial ladder will not start playing until the second round.

All the information is here.

.

View original post here:

Iberoamerican Chess: Iberoamerican also gets on the net | sports - The Union Journal