Svidler Wins the Pepe Cuenca Cup!

The exclam is for the surprise. It wasn't so surprising to see Peter Svidler make the final, (barely) defeating Santosh Vidit in the quarters and David Anton in the semis, but when he was paired with Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the final he seemed a clear underdog. Duda defeated Pentala Harikrishna handily in the quarters and squeaking past Vladislav Artemiev with several tournaments' worth of good fortune in the semis, he looked the favorite. After all, he finished second in the 2018 World Blitz Championship and had performed very well in one of those Chess.com blitz and bullet events, defeated Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Grischuk in back-to-back comeback matches.

In a classical match, it would be a coin toss. Duda is higher-rated, but not by a huge amount, and Svidler's peak rating exceeds Duda's. But because Duda seems (relatively speaking) even better as a blitz player, I think most chess fans expected him to win. This did not happen. Svidler got off to a serious early lead, getting to a 5.5-2.5 score in a match where six and a half points wins it. Duda won twice to make it close, but then Svidler won the game and the event, to the happiness of all of us who root for "old" guys and who have appreciated his commentary over the years.

More here.