Cuban chess player Omar Almeida set a national record for simultaneous games with timing, by facing 32 opponents and reaching 81 percent of the points in play, the weekly Jit reported.
Almeida, a Grandmaster (GM) member of the national pre-selection, won 23 challenges, agreed to six draws and lost to three opponents in the capital’s Hotel Plaza.
That result was enough to validate the record, as he needed 65 percent of the possible units.
An important challenge, a demanding test. I am very happy to have been able to set the record,” said Almeida after almost four hours of play against players with accumulated Elo points ranging from 1,400 to 1,999.
In each game he had two hours and 30 minutes, more than 30 seconds of increment after each move and his rivals had 45 minutes and 10 seconds extra.
I didn’t end up so tired, but I had several time constraints and that could complicate the positions, said the GM.
Almeida faced children from the Island Chess Study Center, the School of School Sports Initiation Martyrs of Barbados and senior amateurs.
In addition, he surpassed the record of José Raúl Capablanca, world champion from 1921 to 1927, who, according to historians, played in front of 10 boards.
It is an honor to be the new record holder, but even more for succeeding a great player like Capablanca, said the Cuban GM.
“We are showing that chess is as alive as ever in Cuba. We all have the commitment to keep it that way,” expressed Cuban Grandmaster Vivian Ramon, director of the Island, who had the honor of performing the first move of honor.
“Coincidentally today would have been Guillermo Garcia’s 70th birthday. Paying tribute to him in this way is the best thing that could happen,” Ramon confessed to Jit after recognizing that the simultaneous games are ideal to promote the so-called science game.
Each participant received as a gift the book “Un grande conocido como Guillermito”, in which authors Danilo Buela and Jesús G. Bayolo recreate the transcendence of the great Cuban master, who died in 1990 in a traffic accident.
