Blackout affects Cuban chess players in the University Cup

The Cuban chess players who participated virtually in the IV Kasparov Foundation University Chess Cup 2024 had their performance affected by a blackout in the room of the Isla Chess Study Center.

Belonging to the "Manuel Fajardo" University of Physical Culture and Sports Sciences, the room ran out of electricity during the first round, affecting the performance of the Cuban competitors.

Held with rapid virtual games, the University Chess Cup had the participation of 117 teams from 26 nations and was won by the University of Rio Grande Valley, in Texas, United States (with 8 points out of nine possible).

It was followed on the podium by Gunadarma University (7.5), from Indonesia, and the National University of kyiv (7), from Ukraine. According to the official portal JIT, the Cuban team accumulated 5.5 points and reached 27th place, despite the fact that, until the closing round, it had a chance of finishing among the top 10 places.

“That was a very tense round. We had had problems in the previous one with the electrical fluid and that affected the players a little," the international referee commented to the aforementioned media. Melquiades Quintana, who served as captain of the cast.

The team that represented the Cuban University won five of the nine matches, tied in one and lost in three. Daniel Hidalgo, Rafael Mayola, Jose Izquierdo, Diego Ymas and Ariel Calvo They made up the group that played for two days.

“In general sense, the technology we used was at the level of the rest of the teams. The same thing happened with the connection. We only regret that electricity failure that we could not foresee,” Quintana acknowledged.

According to the captain, the Cuban team did not have its best university figures available, since Cristian Vitier and Abel Fabián Lopez They are in the absolute national championship.

Blackouts have worsened again in Cuba after the end and beginning of the year festivities, reaching a massive dimension in terms of duration and frequency in recent weeks.

"We have a significant level of unavailability, especially in distributed generation and in part of the floating plants... Unquestionably, fuel is marking the fundamental unavailability that causes effects from morning to night", explained this Monday the technical director of the Electrical Union of Cuba (UNE), Lazarus War Hernandez.