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PRO Chess League - Week 4 Preview: California Showdown

PRO Chess League - Week 4 Preview: California Showdown

hellokostya
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If there's one thing Californians can agree on, it's that the Golden State is the best place in the world to live in, hands down. Warm weather, beaches, Silicon Valley, avocados, wine, In N' Out Burger, Hollywood and the list goes on and on and on. But within California a civil war continues to brew, and the question remains: which side of California is superior, North or South?

Well the battle will be decided today at 6:45 PM Pacific, as the San Jose Hackers (2-1) will take on the undefeated San Diego Surfers (3-0) in a pivotal match-up in the Pacific Division of the PRO Chess League. Here are this week's lineups:

San Jose Hackers San Diego Surfers
GM Rauf Mamedov GM Melikset Khachiyan
GM Zviad Izoria IM Keaton Kiewra
IM-elect Kostya Kavutskiy IM Michael Brown
NM Faik Aleskerov IM Joshua Sheng

For Rounds 3 & 4, San Diego will be substituting in FM Craig Hilby on Board 4, who made the following meme during some friendly trash talk that occurred on Facebook:

San Jose will surely be looking to bounce back after our close loss last week to Rio Grande. Make sure to tune in to watch the match live, featuring commentary by the so-called "King of the North", GM Cristian Chirila, who will be streaming the match on his Twitch Channel! What are your predictions for today's epic showdown?

The San Jose Hackers are a professional chess team in the Pacific Division of the PRO Chess League, sponsored by Bay Area Chess. To connect with the Hackers, please visit our FacebookTwitter, and Official Site.

hellokostya
IM Kostya Kavutskiy

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Bio

IM Kostya Kavutskiy is a professional chess author, journalist, coach, commentator, and player. As a part of Chess.com's content team since 2009, Kostya has recorded many video lectures, covered elite tournaments, written instructive articles & blogs, and has done many live commentary shows for Chess TV. Kostya has also written a number of articles for Chess Life magazine and Chess Life Online, and is currently an instructor for Chess University. In 2015, Modernized: The Open Sicilian was released, which Kostya co-authored with IM Zhanibek Amanov. Kostya's tournament accomplishments include winning the 2014 Southern California Closed Championship, as well as achieving his IM title in November 2016. In April 2017, he placed 6th in the star-studded 2017 Reykjavik Open. He currently resides in Mountain View, CA, and his plans are to pursue the GM title while working actively as a coach.