IM (1999); GM (1999).

GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista was born in Cuba and has long been Cuba's #2 player behind Leinier Dominguez Perez. He began to compete internationally during his teenage years, gaining his Grandmaster title in 1999, 32 days after gaining his IM title. (1) In 2001 he became World Junior Champion and won the Lausanne Young Masters event, ahead of future top-ten players Ruslan Ponomariov, Etienne Bacrot, and Levon Aronian, among others.

In 2004 Bruzon entered FIDE's top 100 by winning the B-group of the Corus Chess Tournament at Wijk aan Zee. He also became Cuban champion in 2004, and that fall he scored 8.5/11 on second board at the Calvia Olympiad, recording a 2771 performance rating.

Bruzon's steady rating gains continued into 2005, when he made an even score at the Corus Group A (2005) against an average opposition rated well over 2700. Other successes that year included a second consecutive Cuban Championship and the American Continental Championship (2005) at Buenos Aires 2005. First Ibero-American Champion at Ayamonte 2006 [brasilbase-1]. He won the Cuban Championship in 2009 also.
In 2011 Champion http://www.ajedrezenmadrid.com/torn... of the Americas Continental at Toluca, sharing 1st place with Mark Bluvshtein, Giovanni Portilho Vescovi and Yuniesky Quesada Perez. At the World Cup (2011), Bruzon defeated Yuniesky Quesada Perez, Francisco Vallejo Pons and Le Quang Liem in the first three rounds, but lost to Ruslan Ponomariov during the blitz tiebreaker after drawing the classical games and both sets of rapid-play tiebreakers. His very successful participation (7.5/8 - +7 =1 against 6 GMs and 2 IMs(4)) in the Catalan team events in Spain launched him into the 2700 club for the first time. He competed in the 4th Ibero-American Championships held in Quito in Ecuador, winning his preliminary group and making the final, but came 3rd in the playoff for the top places. The Ecuadorian Chess Federation advised that it would not recognise the event for FIDE rating purposes, but it appears that it either changed its decision in this respect or FIDE took the matter into its own hands, and subsequently recognised the event in the October rating period. In July 2012, he played in the Quebec Invitational Open, and scored outright 2nd with 7/9, a half point behind Wesley So. He played second board for Cuba at the Chess Olympiad (2012) in Istanbul scoring close to par at 8/11 and finished 2012 by winning the 3rd JAHV McGregor tournament in Bogota, Colombia and the Internacional Copa AES 2012 held in the Dominican Republic.

Bruzon started 2013 by playing 2nd board for Cuba at the 9th Panamerican Team Chess Championship held in Brazil, the winner of which would qualify to play in the World Team Championships to be held later in 2013. Unfortunately for Cuba, while Bruzon scored a reasonably solid 4.5/6 (+3 =3), his country placed 2nd behind the USA. Since then he has had a couple of poor tournaments, including 7/10 in the relatively weak Capablanca Open that was held at the same time as the annual round robin Capablanca Memorial elite event, and a mediocre =6th at the American Continental championship, insufficient for him to qualify for the 2013 World Cup - between these two tournaments he shed 20 rating points. He won the Zonal 2.3 tournament held in Costa Rica in June 2013 and therefore qualified for the 2013 World Cup. Soon afterwards he won the 8th Edmonton International (2013) with a round to spare ahead of Nigel Short with 8/9 (23/27 in the football scoring system used). A couple of weeks later, Bruzon was =1st (3rd on tiebreak behind Varuzhan Eduardovich Akobian and countryman Yuniesky Quesada Perez respectively) with 6.5/9 at the World Open 2013 held in Arlington, Virginia. In his final hit out before the World Cup, Bruzon won the 2013 Quebec Invitational outright with a score of 7/9 and placed =3rd at the 2013 Canadian Open. After the World Cup, he placed outright first in the 1st Azuqueca Chess Classic in Spain, but nevertheless lost 5 rating points. (2) He finished up 2013 by placing =1st in the Panama Open 2013, 7/9 in the IV Jahv Mc Gregor ITT, and =1st in the XXV GM Carlos Torre Repetto in Memoriam Magistral.

Bruzon started 2014 with =1st with 7/9 at the V Abierto Internacional de Alajuela 2014 in Costa Rica, and then followed up with outright 1st on 6/7 at the Campeonato Nacional de Ajedrez Valladolid 2014 in Mexico, 1st at the Villahermosa Open in Mexico in April 2014 and =1st with 7/9 at the LX Campeonato Nacional e Internacional Abierto Mexicano 2014. He placed outright 2nd at the category 19 Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2014) with 5.5/10, a point behind the winner Wesley So. Subsequently he came 2nd behind Kamsky at the 2014 2014 National Open and =1st with 7/9 alongside compatriot Quesada at the New York International but then crashed at the 2nd Annual DC International and at the World Open, both of which were staged in Arlington, Virginia in late June and early July 2014, shedding over 30 rating points. However, he returned to form in August at the Chess Olympiad (2014), when he performed strongly on board 2 for Cuba, narrowly missing an individual medal and helping Cuba to 7th place (9 places ahead o fits seeding), its equal strongest placing ever alongside its results in 1990 and 2004.

Bruzon qualified for the World Cup (2013) via Zonal 2.3, and defeated Evgeny Najer in the first round but was eliminated from the event when he lost to Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov in the tiebreaker to the second game. In October 2014, he placed =10th at the American Continental Championships, several places short of qualifying for the World Cup 2015, but made up for that lapse of form by winning Zonal 2.3 staged in Ecuador in 2015 to qualify for the World Cup (2015) where he defeated Vidit Santosh Gujrathi in the first round before being eliminated from the Cup upon his second round loss to former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. He again qualified to the 2017 World Cup(3).

He wound up 2014 with =2nd place at the ITT Millonario de Navidad Ciudad Bogota, with a score of 7/9, half a point behind the young Peruvian GM Emilio Cordova, followed by first place at the 26th International Carlos Torre Repetto Tournament with 7.5/9 and first place at the 5th Latin American Cup (8/9).

Bruzon's highest rating to date was 2717 in October 2012 when he also reached his highest ranking, #31 in the world.

Videos

Aman Hambleton and Lazaro can be seen playing in the 2013 Canadian open at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fknI...

References / Sources

(1) http://www.chess.com/article/view/c...,

(2) http://chess-results.com/tnr108411....,

(3) http://www.fide.com/images/stories/...,

(4) http://ratings.fide.com/individual_...,

(5) Wikipedia article: Lazaro Bruzon,

(6) http://www.2700chess.com/ (Live rating).