Road To The PCL Finals: Saint Louis Arch Bishops

The PRO Chess League finals start on Friday, so it's high time to take a closer look at the four teams that will be fighting for the title. Today, in our final preview: the Saint Louis Arch Bishops.

The PRO Chess League finals will take place on September 25-27 on Chess.com/Live with commentary on Chess.com/TV. Below are the four teams and their lineups.

Lineups PRO Chess League Finals

#	Logo	Fed	Saint Louis Arch Bishops	Rapid Elo	Pts	Games	Perf
1			Fabiano Caruana	2773	19	28	2768
2			Leinier Dominguez	2786	20	32	2713
3			Wesley So	2741	24	32	2825
4			Jeffery Xiong	2730	7	12	2658
#	Logo	Fed	China Pandas	Rapid Elo	Pts	Games	Perf
1			Ding Liren	2826	6	8	2733
2			Yu Yangyi	2738	8	12	2747
3			Wei Yi	2752	24.5	36	2769
4			Li Chao	2645	11	19	2671
#	Logo	Fed	Armenia Eagles	Rapid Elo	Pts	Games	Perf
1			Parham Maghsoodloo	2532	7	12	2687
2			Haik Martirosyan	2278	17	24	2766
3			Tigran Petrosian	2637	7.5	16	2618
4			Raunak Sadhwani	2454	5.5	8	2798
#	Logo	Fed	Canada Chessbrahs	Rapid Elo	Pts	Games	Perf
1			Alexander Grischuk	2784	26	36	2772
2			Anish Giri	2731	9	12	2841
3			Ivan Saric	2650	10	23	2583
4			Aryan Tari	2519	7.5	8	2848

Saint Louis Arch Bishops

We are providing a closer look at all four teams and their roads to the finals. In this final article, the focus is on the Saint Louis Arch Bishops.

The preseason line-up for the Arch Bishops included 14 players but only half of them actually played. The most active were GMs Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez with 32 games followed by GM Fabiano Caruana with 28 games. Of these three, So was the MVP this season with 24.5 points and a 2826 performance rating.

GM Jeffery Xiong completes the powerhouse quartet from St. Louis. Although he only played 12 games for the team so far, his online experience on Chess.com in 2020 is tremendous.

Xiong's participation in the recent Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz was a true gift for him. He tends to play the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix each week and he is currently also involved in the Junior Speed Chess Championship where he beat GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov the other day.

With Caruana, Dominguez, and So available in so many matches, it's no surprise that the Arch Bishops won all their matches before the playoffs—just like the Armenia Eagles.

St. Louis won the Western Division with 147 board points, 22.5 more than runner-up Canada Chessbrahs who also made it to the finals.

The team that got closest to beating the Arch Bishops was Chicago Wind, who eventually went down with the smallest possible margin in week three. Caruana won a nice game in the fourth round of this match against GM Ray Robson. 

As the winner of the Western Division, the Bishops could sit out the round of 16. In the quarterfinals, they defeated the India Yogis 9.5-6.5 with the same lineup that we will see in the finals.

Halfway through the match, the score was 4-4, which was half a point too much for the Yogis. Dominguez was the one playing for a win when he suddenly lost on time against GM S.L. Narayanan:

The commentary team is shocked as Lenier Dominguez loses on time against @GMNarayananSL #prochess

Match tied 4-4 going into Round 3 pic.twitter.com/4tCxMRrSKp

— PROChessLeague (@PROChessLeague) March 10, 2020

The Cuban-American GM, who happens to be celebrating his 37th birthday today, recovered by defeating India's top board GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (as well as GM Pentala Harikrishna in the final round).

The Saint Louis Arch Bishops are the only team that has won the PRO Chess League title twice. They have reached the playoffs in all three seasons and ended up winning the title in 2017 (vs. the Norway Gnomes) and 2019 (vs. the Baden-Baden Snowballs).

As the only team with four 2700-players (rapid ratings), the Bishops won't be satisfied with anything other than a third title. In terms of ratings, they'll face their biggest rival in the semi-finals: the China Pandas, led by GM Ding Liren on board one. These teams have never played each other before.

Of all 16 players who will play in the coming weekend, Caruana has the best stats. He played the most games in the PCL of all (121) over the last four years, followed by So (82) and Xiong (77). Caruana also has the best four-year performance in percentage: 77% with a score of 93/121.

And of the 16 finalists, it was also Caruana with the best single performance rating in one season: 2872 in 2018, from scoring 24.5/28.

The other semifinal is played between the Armenia Eagles and the Canada Chessbrahs. The two losing teams will then face each other on Saturday, Sept. 26, for a fight for third place, while the big final is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 27.

Like in the regular season, time control for all games will be 10 minutes plus a two-second increment. Every player on a team will play every player on the other team for a total of 16 games. The four finalists will be competing for a $40,000 prize fund with $20,000 going to the winner. All matches will be streamed live with expert commentary on Chess.com/TV.

See also:

• Road To The PCL Finals: China Pandas
• Road To The PCL Finals: Armenia Eagles
• Road To The PCL Finals: Canada Chessbrahs
• PRO Chess League website