Havana, Dec. 5 — Cuban Ernesto Fernández said goodbye today installed in third place on the podium at the Hotel Gran Bali International Chess Festival in Benidorm, Spain, where he completed seven points out of nine possible and was behind Ukrainian Vitaliy Bernadskiy and Chinese Zhihang Xu.
Fernández climbed to a place among the prize winners thanks to a victorious farewell against Romanian Mihail Marin, rounding off a performance of five other wins, two draws, and just one loss against Armenian Sargis Manukyan, valid for seven points in nine games.
Currently holding 2488 Elo points, the International Master who plays with the Mollet club achieved a performance rating equivalent to 2525 and will add 4.9 units in the next update of the world ranking.
A year ago, Camagüey native Carlos Daniel Albornoz held second place on the podium, a privilege he could not achieve this time as his 6.5 points placed him seventh.
Despite not giving up any match, Albornoz registered five draws and only four wins, which resulted in a disappointing performance of only 2471 Elo points, and 8.6 points will be deducted from his current total of 2584 in the next world ranking list.
The Cuban presence was completed by Maritza Arribas and Leancy Fernández, owners of five and 4.5 points respectively, placed 84th and 94th among more than 200 contestants.
Ukrainian Bernadskiy celebrated the championship with a total of 7.5 points, while Chinese Xu took second place with seven points and a better tiebreak than Cuban Fernández.
Taken from the Cuban News Agency (ACN)
