Leinier Dominguez

Cuban-American Grandmaster Lenier Dominguez has called St. Louis home since 2019. The strongest Cuban player since Jose Capablanca, Dominguez has been rated in the top fifteen players in the world for most of the past decade, with a peak FIDE rating of 2768.

Leiner was introduced to the game by his father at the age of 7 and became a Grandmaster at 17. He won the first of his five Cuban Championships in 2002 and followed this with titles in 2003, 2006, 2012 and 2016. The 2008 World Blitz Champion, Dominguez won the Thessaloniki leg of the 2013 FIDE Grand Prix against an elite field which included Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and former World Champion Veselin Topalov. He received a silver medal for the second best result on board one in the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad.

Lenier moved with his family to the United States in 2016 and started representing his new homeland in 2019. He made his debut in the U.S. Championship that year finishing second. Since then he has shown remarkable consistency placing 4th in 2021, =3rd in 2022, =2nd in 2023 and =2nd in 2024.

Dominguez has played twice for the United States in Chess Olympiads, winning team silver in the 2024 event held in Budapest. Besides playing, Lenier has served as a coach for two World Championship participants, Peter Leko in 2007 and Fabiano Caruana in 2018.