October 13 2004 - Aviv Friedman

Of the 14 ‘Grand Maestros’ of the A group for 2005, it would be fair to call Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon the most enigmatic. Obviously no player who obtains the GM title and wins the World Junior title can be considered an unknown, but besides his impressive chess results resume, not much is known about the 22 year old debutant.

Who is this quiet and unassuming youngster who tore through the B group in 2004 to win the right to participate with the biggest guns this time around? I have used a Cuban chess site, which profiled him a few years ago and other sources to try and shed some light on our fellow:

Born in Tunas in Cuba in 1982, he learned the rules of chess at the ‘modernly late’ age of 9 (nowadays a kid ‘that old’ must have an ELO of 2300 and an IM norm to be considered a hopeful!) At age 14, he made big local headlines when he scored a Fischer-like 13 out of 13 in the Cuban national scholastic tournament.

That fantastic result got him a ticket into the semi finals of the Cuban championship where he went on to share first place with a fine result of 7.5/11. All of a sudden, this 14-year-old provincial kid with no FIDE rating was following the footsteps of the great Capablanca (and his friend and the other great Cuban young talent Lenier Dominguez) to his country’s championships finals! His modest 4 points in 13 encounters included a first ever win against a GM, Walter Arencibia, himself a former young hopeful.

After that, his rise to the realms of national and international success was quite meteoric. In 1998, after a series of domestic achievements that included winning the Cuban Junior championship and again the semi finals of the National championship it was time to travel abroad. A first success at the Youth festival in La Paz, Bolivia was culminated by winning a bronze medal at the World championships under 16 in Oropesa, Spain.

By 1999 the lad has fulfilled all his norms for the IM title and has climbed to an ELO of 2488. As a matter of fact the only reason he didn’t get his IM title is that he managed to fulfill his norms (and rating) for the Grandmaster title before his IM title was approved by FIDE! Young “Lazarito” made this amazing feat of making it to GM in 32 days – incredible indeed.

In 2000 the Cuban GM reaches a new pinnacle when he participates in the prestigious World Junior championship and returns home with the coveted gold medal. The win leads to some invitations and the name Lazaro Bruzon is getting more known.

A frequent visitor to many open events Bruzon gradually increased his rating and crossed the 2600 mark. His latest successes can include qualifying to the world championships from the American Continental competition and of course his win in Corus B 2004. He will clearly be the underdog in his debut in 2005, but it will be an invaluable experience for him and I am sure he will show his bite too. Lets bring back a little reminder to his aggressive style from last year’s event. This game was well received by chess fans on site and on the Internet alike:

View the game(s) below with the PGN viewer

(1) Bruzon,L (2603) - Nijboer,F (2586) [A45]
GMB Wijk aan Zee NED (3), 13.01.2004
1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c5 3.d5 Qb6 4.Nc3 Qxb2 5.Bd2 Qb6 6.e4 e5 7.f4 d6 8.Nf3 Nbd7 9.fxe5 dxe5 10.Bc4 Be7 11.Rb1 Qd8 12.Bg5 h6

13.d6! hxg5 14.Nxg5 0-0 15.0-0 Nb6 16.dxe7 Qxe7

17.Rxb6! axb6 18.Nd5 Nxd5 19.Qh5 Qxg5 20.Qxg5 Nf4 21.Qxe5 Be6 22.Rxf4 Bxc4 23.Qh5 Rxa2 24.Rh4 Ra1+ 25.Kf2 f5 26.Qh7+ Kf7 27.exf5 1-0