The 2018 PRO Chess League Season was the second season of the PRO Chess League. It began on January 17 and ended on April 8 with the Armenia Eagles defeating the Chengdu Pandas to claim their first title. This season introduced new qualifications to join the league and an all-star game.
Qualification In order to combat the large league, Shahade decided to cut the league from 48 teams to 32 teams as he believed the inaugural season was "a bit too large and chaotic".In order to determine which teams would return, he used the following:
24 teams invited 6 teams per Qualifier Tournament 2 teams per fan vote
Qualification tournament The qualification tournament took place on November 3 with two qualifiers. The event format was a 13 round individual swiss (time control 3+2), with a team's score decided by summing the scores of their four team members. The top three teams from each qualifier automatically qualified, and the fourth to sixth placed teams were placed into a fan vote to decide the final qualifier.
PosTeam Armenia Eagles Estonia Horses Mumbai Movers Oslo Trolls Apeldoorn Apes Rehovot MastersPosTeam Chengdu Pandas Seattle Sluggers Australia Kangaroos New York Knights Minnesota Blizzard San Francisco Mechanics
Super Saturday and Super Sunday For 2018, the PCL introduced a new match format which allowed teams to play outside of their division. In these matches, each team played one single four-game match against eight other teams. The standings were decided on game points, with the top 6 teams being awarded a match win and teams finishing 7th-10th being awarded a match draw. In addition, the winning team was awarded a $500 bonus.
2/24 Early Super SaturdayTeamPointsResult1A St. Louis Arch Bishops24Win2P Chengdu Pandas23Win3A Montclair Sopranos21.5Win4A Pittsburgh Pawngrabbers19.5Win5P Dallas Destiny18.5Win6P Seattle Sluggers18Win7A Buenos Aires Krakens17Draw8E Armenia Eagles16Draw9E Delhi Dynamite16Draw10C Ljubljana Turtles14Draw11C Reykjavik Puffins13.5Loss12P Rio Grande Ospreys13.5Loss13E Volga Stormbringers13Loss14C Cannes Blockbusters12.5Loss15E Mumbai Movers11Loss16C Marseille Migraines5Loss2/24 Late Super SaturdayTeamPointsResult1E Norway Gnomes21.5Win2P San Jose Hackers20.5Win3P San Diego Surfers19.5Win4A Webster Windmills19.5Win5P Australia Kangaroos19Win6E Estonia Horses17.5Win7A Minnesota Blizzard17.5Draw8A Miami Champions17Draw9A Montreal Chessbrahs16Draw10E Riga Magicians15Draw11C Amsterdam Mosquitoes14Loss12C London Towers13Loss13E Oslo Trolls13Loss14C London Lions12Loss15C Stockholm Snowballs11.5Loss16P Las Vegas Desert Rats9Loss 2/4 Super SundayTeamPointsResult1E Armenia Eagles22Win2E Volga Stormbringers21.5Win3C Ljubljana Turtles21Win4C Marseille Migraines18.5Win5C Stockholm Snowballs17.5Win6E Mumbai Movers17.5Win7E Norway Gnomes17Draw8E Riga Magicians16.5Draw9E Delhi Dynamite16Draw10C London Lions15Draw11C Amsterdam Mosquitoes15Loss12C Reykjavik Puffins14.5Loss13E Oslo Trolls13.5Loss14C London Towers12.5Loss15C Cannes Blockbusters9Loss16E Estonia Horses8.5Loss2/3 Super SaturdayTeamPointsResult1P San Jose Hackers21.5Win2P Chengdu Pandas20Win3P Australia Kangaroos19.5Win4A Webster Windmills19Win5A Montreal Chessbrahs18Win6P Dallas Destiny18Win7P Rio Grande Ospreys17.5Draw8P San Diego Surfers16.5Draw9A Pittsburgh Pawngrabbers16Draw10A Saint Louis Arch Bishops15.5Draw11P Seattle Sluggers15Loss12A Minnesota Blizzard14.5Loss13A Montclair Sopranos13.5Loss14A Miami Champions11Loss15P Las Vegas Desert Rats11Loss16A Buenos Aires Krakens9.5Loss
Standings The top four teams from each division qualify for the playoffs while the two worst teams are relegated from the league and will have to partake in the qualifiers in order to rejoin the league. Eastern DivisionTeamsWinsLossGame Points16.52.59825.53.59535.53.58545488545926458873.55.58182775.5Central DivisionTeamsWinsLossGame Points16.52.590.526.52.58735478.544.54.589.55369064679.572.56.578.581871.5 Atlantic DivisionTeamsWinsLossGame Points17.51.599.52729835.53.510145.53.59254585.56368372.56.58382773.5Pacific DivisionTeamsWinsLossGame Points17.51.59926.52.510436.52.510045494.554.54.597.564.54.58673.55.584.581860.5
Playoffs After the regular season, the top four teams from each division qualified for the playoffs with the teams being seeded 1–4 in their division. In addition, the teams that won their division were invited to play the final two round in San Francisco at the Folsom Street Foundry.
*Advanced due to higher seed ***Triple overtime victory
Awards DivisionPlayerTeam Magnus Carlsen Norway Gnomes Hrant Melkumyan Armenia Eagles Zaven Andriasyan Armenia Eagles Viswanathan Anand Mumbai Movers Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Marseille Migraines Georg Meier Stockholm Snowballs Luka Lenic Ljubljana Turtles Gawain Jones London Towers Fabiano Caruana St. Louis Arch Bishops Aleksandr Shimanov Webster Windmills Awonder Liang Pittsburgh Pawngrabbers Andrew Tang Minnesota Blizzard Hikaru Nakamura Seattle Slggers Yu Yangyi Chengdu Pandas Alexey Dreev San Diego Surfers Anton Smirnov Australia KangaroosAwardPlayerTeamMVP Fabiano Caruana St. Louis Arch BishopsMVP Magnus Carlsen Norway GnomesMVP Hikaru Nakamura Seattle SluggersBest Female Ju Wenjun Chengdu PandasU2600 Zaven Andriasyan Armenia EaglesU2500 Andrew Tang Minnesota BlizzardU2400 Brandon Clarke Australia KangaroosU2300 Artak Manukyan Armenia EaglesU2200 Sander Kukk Estonia Horses
All-Star Game The 2018 All-Star Game was on September 8 with stage 1 and on September 9 for stage 2. The following event format was used.
Stage 1: Round-robin tournament where every player plays one game against everyone else from other three teams, total of 12 games (Time control = 3|1) Stage 2: Knockout round. Seeding determined by total number of points in stage 1 (Time control = 3|0)
References