The Winner of the 2019 Pro Chess League is...
...given in the comments. If you want to watch it for yourself, here's the link.
...given in the comments. If you want to watch it for yourself, here's the link.
The 2019 Pro Chess League final begins in about half an hour, probably more like 25 minutes by the time this post is finished.
The semi-finals were between Baden-Baden, amusingly enough, and Chengdu on the one hand, and between Armenia and St. Louis on the other. To the surprise of probably no one, St. Louis won their match, while Baden-Baden only managed to get past the Chinese team in a playoff.
So, it's the St. Louis Arch Bishops and the Baden-Baden Snowballs, and with St. Louis being led by Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So, their chances of winning ought to be pretty good. (The Snowballs aren't led by the same collection of talent making up Baden-Baden's Bundesliga team.)
A summary of week one, here. Featured players including America's Big Three (Caruana, So, and Nakamura), Ding Liren, and MVL. Carlsen didn't play, at least this time - I'm guessing it's because he's playing in Wijk aan Zee. So is Ding, you say; and rightly, but none of the other players mentioned above are participating. (More on that shortly, in a coming post.)
Anyhow, do check out the link above, which gives a full report and a link to download the games in PGN format.