Windmills, Chessbrahs Clash In PRO Chess League Wednesday-Thursday
After a shake-up of the standings in last week's Battle Royale, the PRO Chess League returns to its regular format for week five. The Atlantic and Pacific Divisions play on Wednesday beginning at 1:30 p.m. PT, while the Eastern and Central Divisions play on Thursday beginning at 7 a.m. PT.
Of the 16 team matches that are ahead of us, we'll be looking at one of the clashes in each division more closely in this preview.
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Webster Windmills vs. Montreal Chessbrahs
Together with the St. Louis Arch Bishops, the Montreal Chessbrahs were off to a very good start especially in the first two weeks in the Atlantic division. However, after they took the lead in week three, things changed in last week's Battle Royale.
It's now the Webster Windmills that lead the standings with 85.5 points, thanks to last week's specific point system (teams received seasonal points for their score in the round robin, plus points based on their standing at the end of the day).
The clash between the Windmills and the "Brahs" is definitely one of the most exciting ones in this week's schedule. After he took time off in Gibraltar, where he tied for sixth place with 7/10, Ivan Saric (with 11/12, the league's MVP thus far) is back on board one for the Chessbrahs. The Windmills are bringing no fewer than three 2600 GMs, including their top board Ray Robson (11/15)
With a significant lead of 12.5 points over the Australia Kangaroos, the Chengdu Pandas are on top of the food chain in the Pacific Division after four weeks of play.
Also on Wednesday, the Pandas meet the San Francisco Mechanics, a team that is currently in the danger zone after three consecutive losses at the start of the season. It's time to turn things around.
This particular opponent might seem a tough one to start a comeback against, but luckily for the Mechanics their opponent is not playing with one of their strongest five players such as Ding Liren or Yu Yangyi. Instead, Xu Xiangyu (3/4) is on top board for what's only his second match. Probably now recovered from his jet lag after playing Wijk aan Zee, a thus-far struggling Sam Shankland (1.5/7) tops San Francisco's line-up.
The brand new leaders in the Eastern division are the Tbilisi Gentlemen after scoring a whopping 20.5 points in last week's Battle Royale. Their lead over the Armenia Eagles is 13 points, the biggest in all four divisions.
W.O.W. 😲🤯😲
— PROChessLeague (@PROChessLeague) February 1, 2019
The @TbilisiGentlem1 win Battle Royale #4 and put the rest of #prochess on notice!
Is their lineup of Jobava, Pantsulaia, Quparadze, and Volkov the best in the league right now? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/SqjANBViBw
This week the Georgian gentlemen will be defending their pole position against the Volga Stormbringers. That means two online blitz specialist on top boards: Baadur Jobava (12/19) for Tbilisi and Dmitry Andreikin (11.5/19) for Volga.
The Baden-Baden Snowballs are another team that leapfrogged its rivals last week to suddenly take first place in the standings, just ahead of the Norway Gnomes. The famous record winner of Bundesliga titles, playing in the PCL for the first time, should be the favorite against the Ljubljana Turtles, currently slated for relegation. It's Georg Meier vs Jure Borisek in the top clash in found four.
Watch all the PRO Chess League action on Twitch.tv/chess, Twitch.tv/prochessleague, and Chess.com/tv. Note that this week the playing days are Wednesday and Thursday.
The Atlantic and Pacific Divisions play on February 6 beginning at 1:30 p.m. PT while the Eastern and Central Divisions play on February 7 beginning at 7 a.m. PT.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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