Havana, Cuba - Cuban Lazaro Bruzon will try today to improve the position 12 that keeps him far from leaders of the American Continental Chess Championship held in San Salvador that is led by US Aleksandr Lenderman.

Bruzon still drags the weight of the defeat he suffered in the second round, because despite beating yesterday Costa Rican Lenmys Arias, he now owns only three units, one point behind the leader.

The first seed of the contest (2 679 Elo points) will need a better performance in the second half to meet the expectations of earning one of the four World Cup tickets in dispute.

According to the draw released by www.chess-results.com, today is a double-program day and Bruzon will first face Chilean Fernando Valenzuela, who has the same amount of units than the Caribbean player and appears 13th.

The other Cubans attending the event have not had a good performance either, especially Isan Ortiz, who lost to Argentine Alan Pichot and now totals 2.5 points and appears in 21st seat.

Yuri González, also candidate to the Olympic team, appears 15th with three units after beating his teammate Abel Fabian Lopez and sent him to 39th spot with only 2 points.

In today's first game Ortiz's opponent will be Guatemalan Wilson Lorenzana while Gonzalez will face Peruvian Guiseppe Leiva.

Lenderman is the only winner of the four games among the 81 players enrolled, and his most recent victim was Argentine Diego Flores, and will rival the also representative of that country, Sandro Mareco.

The latter appears fourth with 3.5 units, figure also achieved by six other players, including Chilean Ivan Morovic and American Awonder Liang, second and third, in that order.