Who Will Win PRO Chess League Week 1?
With the advent of the PRO Chess League only hours away, Chess.com assembled a panel of five chess pundits to predict the outcomes of every match this season.
The experts have quite a bit of work ahead of them, handicapping 24 matches each week. We've asked them to predict not only the match winner, but the final score.
We will be keeping track of the season-long success rates and crowning a winning pundit at season's end (based on match predictions, not game scores).
Click on their blogs to see who they think will be victorious in week one and why.
Here's a brief introduction of each member of the panel and a link to his blog:
IM Robert Ris: Amsterdam, Netherlands. Week one predictions here.
See which matchup he thinks will end 14-2!
Ris, the highest-rated member of our panel, is a prolific chess content creator. He's also the founder of both the Amsterdam Chess Academy and the Dutch Rapid Championships.
NM Alex King: Memphis, Tennessee. Week one predictions here.
King loves anagrams, and you'll want to see what phrase he made out of the letters in "Marseilles." He also makes a bold MVL prediction!
King is in front of a map of Mississippi. He works there in Oxford for the Center for Mathematics and Science Education. There's a chess component, but just recently he was also "at work" solving the Tower of Hanoi.
NM Pete Karagianis: Normal, Illinois. Week one predictions here, where he also spills the beans about this writer's alter ego.
Karagianis is a private coach in southern Illinois. You can see in the picture above he also is a ChessKid.com user. A trained writer, last year he had a cover story published in "Chess Life."
Tarjei Svensen: Oslo, Norway. Week one predictions here.
He "expects to be accused of bias" and you can let him know if he's guilty.
Svensen is one of the most prolific chess Tweeters out there and often has the inside scoop on Norwegian chess. You can follow him on Twitter here and also read his popular chess site Matt and Patt.
Shaun McCoy: Columbia, South Carolina. Week one predictions here, complete with movie references!
McCoy is the director of support for Chess.com and an accomplished author. You can see his full catalogue of books here (not surprisingly, two of them feature "knights").
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
- Email: Mike@chess.com
- Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
- Address: PO Box 60400 Palo Alto, CA 94306
Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
