Here are my predictions for this week's final Battle Royale. I expect things to be very close, especially between 3rd-5th places. I don't have time to explain my method in detail, but the "accurate" rating weighs the player's real rating and their PCL performance rating, with PCL weighted more heavily if they have played a lot, and weighted very lightly or not at all, if they have played little or none.
Player names in bold are those who have played little in PCL and are the key question for their teams.
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| 1. Destiny |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
Preotu is a question mark, but they have three top performers. With Gorovets on 3 this would be one of the top 2-3 lineups in the Pacific.
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| Jeffery Xiong |
2651 |
2739 |
| Conrad Holt |
2561 |
2587 |
| Razvan Preotu |
2513 |
2527 |
| Zhu Jiner |
2364 |
2474 |
|
2522.25 |
2581.75 |
| 2. Pandas |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
I expect Li Di will perform 2600+ again, but they will fall half a point behind Dallas, but ahead of the group from 3-5th.
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| Wang Yue |
2681 |
2704 |
| Xu Xiangyu |
2586 |
2569.5 |
| Li Di |
2464 |
2583 |
| Zhai Mo |
2351 |
2361 |
|
2520.5 |
2554.375 |
| 3. Mechanics |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
Bartek is the Mechanics question mark, but my research says he'll be an asset ;-) Naroditsky, Zierk, and Hong all have lower performances in the first couple weeks of the season, so they are currently doing even better than "accurate" suggests.
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| Danya |
2615 |
2678 |
| Steven |
2506 |
2546 |
| Bartek |
2502 |
2525 |
| Andrew |
2357 |
2394 |
|
2495 |
2535.75 |
| 4. Blizzard |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
Blizzard have always done relatively better in Battle Royales. Henriques is their ?: he only played once before, a battle royale where he did great. Bartholomew had 6.5/7 last time. They will overperform again.
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| Corrales |
2539 |
2540 |
| Henriquez |
2519 |
2547 |
| Tang |
2489 |
2548 |
| Bartholomew |
2439 |
2434.5 |
|
2496.5 |
2517.375 |
| 5. Kangaroos |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
This lineup looks scary strong, but the Blizzard and Mechanics have both played a bit better in the past couple weeks, and in the two previous Battle Royales, so while I could see a 3-way tie, if I had to pick an order, it would be SF or Minn to get half a point more. All 3 of these teams should be in the 14.5-15.5 point range-- very close.
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| Sarana |
2634 |
2680 |
| Smirnov |
2549 |
2633 |
| Daniel Fernandez |
2472 |
2471 |
| Raymond Song |
2305 |
2483 |
|
2490 |
2566.75 |
| 6. Hackers |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
Aleskerov is a big question mark. For them to move up the ranks, he will have to score a few points to help Mamedyarov and Safarli. I have to guess that Hackers won't do great on boards 3+4.
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| Mamedyarov |
2700 |
2719 |
| Safarli |
2676 |
2729 |
| Aleskerov |
2315 |
2315 |
| Ravuri |
2050 |
2270 |
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2435.25 |
2508.25 |
| 7. Seattle |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
Seattle could score around 14/28 if their top 3 do well and their bd 4 scores 0/7. But that's about the upper limit for them, and things won't necessarily go well for all 3 of their top guns on the same day.
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| Naka |
2700 |
2812 |
| Mikhalevski |
2565 |
2569 |
| Margvelashvili |
2530 |
2562 |
| Mayer |
2000 |
1737 |
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2448.75 |
2420 |
| 8 San Diego |
Official Rating |
"Accurate" |
|
| Brown |
2524 |
2387 |
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| Bryant |
2453 |
2396 |
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| Hilby |
2420 |
2430 |
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| Shlyakhtenko |
2162 |
2182 |
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|
2389.75 |
2348.75 |
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If everything goes this way, the Pandas will probably hold onto first place over the Destiny by about 1.5-2 points, while the Kangaroos will keep their 4th place playoff spot by 6-10 points over the Mechanics.
Want to see how things actually shake out? You can watch live on chess.com/tv at 5:30 pm pacific tonight, or see our SF Mechanics perspective at www.twitch.tv/dpruess
