The 55th edition of the International Chess Tournament ¨Capablanca in Memoriam¨, dedicated to the world Cuban Champion José Raúl Capablanca, will commence next April 18th at the National Hotel of Cuba with the attendance of more than 280 participants of 24 countries.

This time one of the most emblematic tournaments of the continent could be seen and followed online through one of the main platforms of the science game.

Carlos Rivero, president of the Cuban Chess Federation informed in a press conference taken place in the important hotel facility of Havana that this edition features the novelty of posting the matches in the Chess24 website, platform that will bring the opportunity of allowing the interested ones of following the actions performed by the four competitive groups: Elite, Premier (exclusive for women), Open and Senior, this last one for older than 60 years.

Integrated by ten Great Masters, all of them with an ELO superior to 2600, the Elite group will count on with five foreigner players and the same amount of Cuban players. The Premier group, made up by ten women, four of them foreigners, among them, the Peruvian Daisy Cori with the highest ELO score, with 2391.

In regard with the Open group, it was reported the attendance of more than a hundred players from 11 countries, 13 of them with the category of Great Master.

Contestants under 16 years old will be presented in the division called Looking for a Capablanca, in commemoration of the Chess player who became champion in Cuba on 1990 with only 12 years old and Pan-American Champion in 1911.

The first round will take place next Tuesday, but on Sunday, April 17th in the morning a simultaneous match will occur with 146 boards in the gardens of the National Hotel.

Rivero commented that the number of boards, represent the sum of the years of the foundation of the National Hotel (91) and the 55th edition of the tournament.

Capablanca, King of kings.

Born in November 19th, 1888 at the military facility of the Castillo del Príncipe, in Havana, the Great Cuban Master José Raúl Capablanca has been the only world chess champion in Cuba (from 1921 to 1927).

With only 12 years of age, became Cuban champion and in 1911, Pan-American Champion.

Was considered the best quick matches player of the world; in the tournaments the players used to play blitz friendship matches and Capablanca never had such a rival during this events. During the breaks of the San Pittsburg 1914, where Capablanca led its rivals play with a five minutes’ leverage and even so, he was never defeated.

The chess player accumulated 302 victories, 245 table and 35 defeats during his career and for which he was called ¨The machinery of playing chess¨, ¨The king of kings¨ or ¨The Mozart of Chess¨. He was awarded with 19 beauty awards which is something just a few have gotten during their lives as chess players.

From 1962 on, in order to pay tribute to the greatest chess Cuban player and one of the best of all times, the International ¨Capablanca in Memoriam¨ Tournament began to celebrate.

Likewise, the International Chess Federation declared in 1988 its birth date as the International Day of Chess, as an homage for our Cuban champion who defined the science game as ¨something more than a game, an intellectual diversion that has to do with art and science and that constitutes a mean of social and intellectual approaching.