Capablanca Memorial

Chess tournaments are often organized as memorials for deceased players or personalities from the chess world. However the most famous, and the longest-running of these, is the Cuban Capablanca Memorial which has begun in Havana.
Ivanchuk was the sole victor in the first round.

In the first round Nigel Short sacrificed a piece for several pawns but in the endgame of bishop and six pawns versus two bishops and two pawns the pawns were blockaded and Ivanchuk was picking them off one-by-one when Short resigned.

Nepomniachtchi against Alekseev was a steady Petroff where White accepted a repetition in the early middlegame.

The all-Cuban battle between Dominguez and Bruzon was the longest game of all. White had the bishop pair in a type of closed Spanish or Italian but for most of the game didn't seem to have very much to show for all the toing-and froing. Later however White obtained a favourable opposite-bishop endgame a pawn up, but despite the presence of two passed pawns Bruzon was able to blockade the light-squares and earn the draw.

White	Rating	Country	Result	Black	Country	Rating	No. Moves	Opening
Nigel Short	2685	ENG	0-1	Vassily Ivanchuk	2741	UKR	43	Trompovsky
Leinier Dominguez Perez	2713	CUB	0.5-0.5	Lazaro Bruzon Batista	2668	CUB	78	Spanish Berlin
Ian Nepomniachtchi	2695	RUS	0.5-0.5	Evgeny Alekseev	2700	RUS	23	Petroff's Defence

The tournament is a double-round robin run over ten games. After the first round the position is as follows, with a few statistics to get your teeth into!

Position	Name	Country	Official Rating	Highest ever Rating	Virtual Rating before Havana	World ranking	Age	Points
1st	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR	2741	2787	2726	12	41	1
2nd-5th	Leinier Dominguez Perez	CUB	2713	2721	2713	28	26	0.5
2nd-5th	Evgeny Alekseev	RUS	2700	2725	2711	37	29	0.5
2nd-5th	Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2695	Actual	2695	42	19	0.5
2nd-5th	Lazaro Bruzon atista	CUB	2668	2677	2668	63	28	0.5
6th	Nigel Short	ENG	2685	2712	2683	48	45	0

Nepomniachtchi comes from the same age-group as Carlsen, Karjakin, Vachier-Lagrave, Andreikin, Edouard, Howell, Nguyen Ngoc Truong, Kuzubov, Khairullin and Hammer all of whom are over 2600. A particularly strong selection!

More information in Spanish from the

Official site

Capablanca features in many people's 'top ten of all-time chess players' and, for many, the Cuban was the best ever player until the modern era. He was certainly one of the most difficult to beat and was particulary renowned for his superb endgame technique.

Was José Raoul Capalanca the best pre-war player of all? @ chesshistory.com