INTENSIVE CHESS WEEKEND PRIOR TO THE CATALAN LEAGUE

As always, the year begins with plenty of chess at the club. A week before the start of the Catalan League, in which the Lloret Chess Club will compete this year with two teams—one in the Preferente category and the other in the Third Girona category—two tournaments have been held: the Fortià International Open, on Saturday the 10th, and the Girona Cup, on Sunday the 11th.

For both tournaments, our players traveled to the Alt Empordà region. Arnau Jiménez competed in the 6th Fortià Open in the under-12 category, where he had a very good tournament and finished in third place overall. The young player commented that the time control (without increment) disadvantaged him in the decisive games, which demonstrates his desire to continue improving every day. We are very pleased with Arnau's recent results, as he is starting the year in excellent form, and we encourage him to continue training hard.

On Sunday morning, a four-player team departed Lloret for L'Escala to compete in the Gironina Cup. The team consisted of Carles Jordà, Sergii Shchurenko, Lev Shustov, and Biel Castellanos. This young team performed well against some very strong opponents. The tournament began with a loss to the top seed, Olot A of the División de Honor, who ultimately won the championship by a wide margin. Despite not scoring any points in that match, our players played some excellent games against titled opponents: a Grandmaster, two FIDE Masters, and a Catalan Master.

From that point on, the team's results improved, finishing the tournament with 3 wins, 3 draws, and 2 losses. The team finished in 22nd place out of 52 teams, improving its initial ranking by five positions. These results give us confidence heading into the Catalan League, where the goal is to maintain our league status for another year and consolidate our position in the Preferente division, a category that has historically been challenging for the club.