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PRO Chess League - Week 7 Recap + PLAYOFF Preview

PRO Chess League - Week 7 Recap + PLAYOFF Preview

hellokostya
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The San Jose Hackers (4-3) faced the Saint Louis Arch Bishops (6-1) in the final week of the PRO Chess League, a match which saw the Arch Bishops winning by a score of 10-6. Despite a playoff spot already secured for all teams in the Pacific Division, this was a match to try and improve playoff seeding, as the top two teams in each division secure a first round bye in the upcoming playoffs, a huge advantage in the highly competitive Pacific Division.

Saint Louis, lead by World #2 GM Wesley So, got off to a big half-time lead with 5.5-2.5, including a huge upset win by GM Ben Finegold over GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who was playing in between rounds at the FIDE Grand Prix, where he ended up sharing first! Unfortunately for the Hackers, Saint Louis ended up clinching the match at the end of Round 3, with a score of 8.5-3.5.

 But there was a glimpse of silver in all that fog, as in Round 4 we saw the marquee matchup of perhaps all of Week 7, as Mamedyarov took on Wesley So...and handed him his first loss of his PRO Chess League Season! As usual we had live commentary on my Twitch Channel, featuring NM Christopher Yoo & NM Teemu Virtanen of the Hackers. Here's our highlight from Week 7:

And, check out the full show from last week:

PLAYOFFS!

This Wednesday, March 1, at 6:30 PM Pacific the San Jose Hackers (4-3) will take on the Dallas Destiny (5.5-1.5) in the first round of the PRO Chess League playoffs. The playoffs are elimination format, and in the event of a tie (8-8), Dallas advances due to their higher seeding. We are excited! Here are the lineups for Round 1 of the PCL Playoffs:

San Jose Hackers Dallas Destiny
GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov GM Jeffrey Xiong
GM Zviad Izoria/GM Daniel Naroditsky GM Ruifeng Li
IM Kesav Viswandha/GM Cristian Chirila

GM Conrad Holt

NM Faik Aleskerov/NM Ivan Ke

NM Christopher Toolin


After two rounds, the Hackers will substitute their boards 2-4 as listed above. I'll be streaming live commentary on Twitch, along with NM Christopher Yoo and NM Teemu Virtanen, make sure to follow all of the action live!


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.