# Pepe Cuenca

José Fernando Cuenca Jiménez, better known as Pepe Cuenca (born March 17, 1987 in Granada), is a Spanish chess grandmaster and commentator.
At the age of 19 he got his International Master title from FIDE at the Motril International Open in December 2006 and in 2015 he got his International Grandmaster title, currently the highest title of chess master that can be achieved. In March 2022 he had his highest Elo rating system: 2558 points.
He started as a chess commentator on the chess24.com platform, with his partner, David Martínez (Divis), broadcasting to the Spanish speaking community. He is also a chess commentator on YouTube.

## Biography

He began to excel in the age-group championships being Spanish junior chess champion on several occasions: first time in 2003 under-16 champion in the Spanish town Mondariz, and then in 2005 under-18 champion also in Mondariz.
He participated in four World Age Group Championships, finishing in all four between 30th and 40th position (U-12 Oropesa 1999, U-14 Oropesa 2001, U-16 Halkidiki 2003 and U-18 Belfort 2005).
He was champion of Andalusia in 2005, and in the age group championships he was champion of Andalusia in the U-12 categories in 1999, in U-14 in 2000 and 2001, in U-16 in 2002 and 2003, in U-18 in 2000 and 2005. He also won the U-16 Andalusia Cup in 2000.
Champion of Spain of Autonomic Selections in 2001, representing the Andalusian Chess Federation. Runner-up in the Andalusian Team Chess Division of Honour in 2005 with the Caja Granada Chess Club team. As a member of the Andalusian Chess Federation he met the chess commentators Carlos Matamoros Franco and Luis Fernández Siles.
At the age of 19 he obtained his IM title (FIDE International Master) and in 2015 his GM (International Grandmaster) title, when he obtained his last norm in the German Bundesliga. In March 2022 he reached his highest Elo level (2558 points).
In 2018 he was sub-champion of Spain absolute in Linares (Jaén) and in 2019 eighth of Spain absolute, both championship finals being tragic for the player from Granada as he was leading before the last round.
In 2024 the Spanish Club Chess Championship - Honor Division with a remarkable performance in the last rounds.
As a trainer, Cuenca holds the title of FIDE Trainer.
He was champion of the La Roda International Open in 2011. Cuenca has participated in the following European leagues: Spanish, German, French, Italian, English, Swedish, Danish and Portuguese.
In September 2020 he was proclaimed champion of Spain by teams of Division of Honour with Club de Ajedrez Silla - Bosch Serinsys, a club that belongs to the Chess Federation of the Valencian Community, in Linares (Jaén).

## Academic career

Cuenca is a civil engineering graduate from the University of Granada (2005–2010). His final degree project was a research project, and he developed a new type of more effective and cheaper concrete from ash from the combustion of olive biomass. This work was published in the journal Construction and Building Materials in 2013 and has reached 144 citations in 2024 according to ResearchGate. This study can have a positive impact in the local-sustainable economy as olive-biomass is a main product of the region but further research is going on to ensure the high quality of this manufacture of concrete.
After finishing his degree, Cuenca obtained several scholarships to study for a master's degree, some of them as a chess sportsman in the United States. He finally decided to accept an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to study the MSc Mathmods: Mathematical Modelling in Engineering: Theory, Numeric, Applications from 2011 to 2013, graduating from the Universities of L'Aquila, Italy, Hamburg, Germany and Gdansk, Poland.
He wrote his Master thesis at the Institute for Computational Physics in Stuttgart, Germany with the following title: ‘Molecular dynamics coupled to a thermal lattice Boltzmann code in order to model particle agglomeration in flow’.
In 2013, Cuenca was hired as a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Hamburg in Germany, where in 2017 he completed his PhD in applied mathematics, entitled PhD in applied mathematics to engineering and Ultrasonic NDT: Persistent and Tangential homology for defect classification in Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD). His work has been also published at international journals and conferences.

## Professional chess commentator

At the end of 2013 Cuenca joined the chess online platform chess24.com, together with his colleague IM David Martínez. He has been compared for his style with the Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos. He has been the official commentator at tournaments in several countries. Currently, Cuenca combines competition with broadcasting. He has also traveled around Europe and Latin America promoting chess through exhibitions, talks and other events. Although he is best known for his chess commentary in Spanish, he has also been a commentator in English in main events, sharing events with Judith Polgar.

## Chess training materials

Cuenca has also a number of chess online courses in several platforms for players of different levels, being his course to Philidor Defense one of his favorites. He has also given chess courses in English in the Saint Louis Chess Club both online and presential. In his YouTube channel he continues his work, started on chess24, summarising and explaining high level for an amateur level.

## Notable games

* Roeland Pruijssers vs Cuenca Jimenez, Bundesliga (2014/15), Bremen GER, Round 2, Oct-19 Giuoco Pianissimo (C53),0-1.
Cuenca considered himself a positional player with resilience to play long strategical games where a good endgame technique is needed. However, in this game he leads an opposing castling attack where the g-column is used thematically for a direct attack on the opposite king.
| | h | g | f | e | d | c | b | a | |
| 1 | | | | | | | | | 1 |
| 2 | | | | | | | | | 2 |
| 3 | | | | | | | | | 3 |
| 4 | | | | | | | | | 4 |
| 5 | | | | | | | | | 5 |
| 6 | | | | | | | | | 6 |
| 7 | | | | | | | | | 7 |
| 8 | | | | | | | | | 8 |
| | h | g | f | e | d | c | b | a | |

## Selected bibliography
### Academic publications

* Cuenca, J. F., & Iske, A. (2016). Persistent homology for defect detection in non-destructive evaluation of materials. The e-Journal of Nondestructive Testing, 21(01). ISSN 1435-4934.
* Cuenca, J. F., Iske, A., Labud, P. A., & Nemitz, O. (2016). Tangential Homology for Defect Detection in the Time of Flight Diffraction Method (TOFD). Proceedings in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics.
* Cuenca, J. F., & Iske, A. (2016). Persistent Homology for Defect Detection in Non-Destructive Evaluation of Materials. Hamburger Beiträge.
* Cuenca, J. F. (2013). Particle agglomeration in flow modelled with molecular dynamics coupled to a thermal Lattice Boltzmann code. TASK QUARTERLY, 17(3–4), 181–213.
* J. Cuenca, J. Rodríguez, M. Martín-Morales, Z. Sánchez-Roldán, M. Zamorano (2013) "Effects of olive residue biomass fly ash as filler in self-compacting concrete". Construction and Building Materials, 40: 702–709.
* M.Martín-Morales, J.Cuenca, P.López; "Characterization of the biomass ashes- Application in Mortars" in Spanish national congress of civil engineering: Society, Economy and Environment (2011) -. ISBN 978-84-380-0452-4.
* Martin-Morales, M., Cuenca, J., Lopez, P., Rodriguez, J., Zamorano, M., & Valverde, P. I. (2011, October). Self-compacting concrete with biomass fly ash: Preliminary results. In Proceeding of the Thirteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, Cagliari, Italy (pp. 3–7).

### Conferences

* Conference at the University of Valencia