Another coup by the Argentine chess player Faustino Oro: he won undefeated a tournament in Spain
Once again Faustino Oro is news in the world of chess. The little Argentine prodigy, who will turn 11 on October 14, of which only five of them have been dedicated to learning, has just brilliantly won a rapid chess tournament (with games of 15 minutes plus an additional 5 seconds per move for each player), in the VII Open Puigpelat that took place at the Casal headquarters in that city with the participation of 170 registered chess players.
Fausti, Chessi or Messi of chess, as the Spanish press usually calls him, once again demonstrated his abilities and great talent in a competition with a pace of play different from that to which we are accustomed. Little Gold has achieved great triumphs, such as winning the title of international master, with a world record, in classical chess tests (games designed to last 4 or 5 hours). He also achieved outstanding victories in bullet rhythm (games at 1 minute) or blitz (at 3 minutes per competitor) against the best chess players in the world, among them, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and the American Hikaru Nakamura. But now he showed off in a new way. Quick chess.
In Puigpelat, a cadastral point in the geography of Barcelona, with barely 1,200 inhabitants, he brought out the best of his chess in a competition with the majority of players representing the federations of Spain and Catalonia, but in which Chileans, Ukrainians, Cubans and Peruvians also took part.
The test that was carried out yesterday, using the Swiss 9-wheel system, had him as the sole winner after collecting almost 90% of the points in dispute. The Argentine boy won seven games: against the locals Pau Cartanya, Roberto Villa, Agustín Guasch, Daniel Moreno and Daniel Salinas, against the Chilean Fernando Valenzuela and the Ukrainian Yuri Solodovnichenko. He only agreed to two draws with the local Hugo Uber Gracia and another Spaniard, but of Latvian origin, Alexei Shirov, who was one of the three best players in the world in the 90s, and who now, at 52 years old, is ranked N °62 in the FIDE world ranking, and who is currently traveling to Hungary, as a member and defender of the first board of the Spanish team in the 45th Budapest Olympiad, which has started four days ago.
10 months ago, Faustino Oro, accompanied by his parents, Alejandro and Romina, left for Spain in search of a better horizon in the world of chess. His parents left their jobs and made the decision to give their only son an opportunity, who according to experts in Argentina predicted a prosperous future in this ancient activity. Although the adaptation was not easy, especially for his parents, who were unable to enter the workforce, although fortunately last May a group of Argentine patrons offered to accompany the boy's career by taking care of his expenses. This allowed Faustino to participate in more competitions without having to worry about travel, food and lodging expenses. In just two months, the Argentine prodigy achieved the two standards (performances) that he needed to achieve the title of international master (the step before grandmaster, a kind of black belt among judokas), with the addition that he achieved them with a world record and became the chess player who achieved that title at the earliest age: at 10 years, 8 months and 16 days.
This weekend, and given the proximity of the beginning of the Chess Olympiad in Budapest (a kind of World Cup for selected teams), to which Faustino Oro will travel as a guest-member of the Argentine staff, but will not be part of the participating team, he decided register for the Catalan tournament, perhaps, as a kind of training for their next commitments. Starting on September 25 and until October 1, the Ibero-American Championship will be played in Linares. Then he will participate in the Spanish Division of Honor team championship that will be played in Melilla, October 12 to 18, for Club Magic de Extremadura (with his presence, Faustino will set a new record for precocity among the participants and will be part of the team for the one passed by figures like Carlsen -at 13 years old-, Caruana, Karjakin, Aronian and even the Argentine Alan Pichot, whom this year Faustino will replace in the formation of Club Magic). And finally, starting on November 25, he will return to Argentina to play in the final of the 99th Argentine Championship.
At the VIII Puigpelat Open, the Argentine was seeded 9th but that was not an impediment for him to reach the top alone after his superb performance. The achievement achieved will soon be reflected in his Elo ranking (scoring system in chess), which in the rapid specialty is 2359 points, and which after the conquest in Barcelona will rise to 2404 points. In the classic or thought chess system, Faustino has 2434 points and in the blitz mode, 2431. In the domestic ranking, headed by Sandro Mareco with 2574 points, little Faustino is already Top15.
